He takes the first from me, the cover inexplicably illustrated with a camping scene. Inside, it reads: Surprise! Lacey Chabert is behind you.

A reluctant hmph emits from his nose. “I’m not going to look behind me. I refuse.” (Then he does, surreptitiously.) He reads the blue card, which I’ve drawn a pastoral scene for, with flowers and tiny cottages. Wishing you all the zest with your orange scones.

“Have I ever made orange scones?” he wonders.

“I tried to come up with universal sentiments, but everything came out very niche. If you ever meet someone who bakes orange scones, this one will really hit.”

He opens the yellow card, its front featuring all of the nutritional information on a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese for no reason whatsoever. The gem inside is: I might be your best option. The most crucial detail of designing my cards is that the artwork must be unrelated to the message, for maximum chaos.

“And one more, because I was on a roll.” I open this one up for him myself, giggling at my own joke. It’s time to move on, Chris.

“I love it!” he exclaims. “Who’s Chris?”

“We don’t know!”

Hall’s eyes gleam. His knuckle grazes my cheekbone. “You’re right. Very niche. Thank you, I love these.”

“I try.”

His expression changes, eyes darkening. He holds my stare for a long, loaded moment, and then something above me snags his attention. His jaw hardens.

“What?” I look up, but all I see is a puff of smoke. It smells like mint, like magic. “Why do you keep doing that? What’s up there?”

“Nothing.” His face is flushed. Definitely not nothing, then. Maybe I’m being haunted.

Snowflakes from the memory land on his shoulders, instantly melting. They last longer on my clothes than his, star-frost sparkling against my coat. Hall presses the pad of his finger to a snowflake that’s landed on my sleeve and crystallizes it with his magic, marveling over it for a moment before he tucks it into his pocket.

“I am feeling terribly human today,” he says at length, settling the cards on his knee. “I used to find those characters on CW shows unrelatable, but now I’m all moody and I just want to put on a black cloak and wail mournfully in . . . in a park full of fog. I want my cloak to billow behind me as I storm down an alley at midnight, the shadows scattering fearfully.” His hand tightens into a fist. “I want to wander through a cemetery in the rain and curse my feelings.”

“I understand. We’ve all been there.”

He nods again.

“Would it help if I said I’ve thought of the perfect white elephant gift?”

“Maybe.” He’s skeptical.

“I have two ideas, actually. The first is a papier-mâché Lacey Chabert from Family for Christmas and a papier-mâché Lacey Chabert from A Christmas Melody meeting and realizing they’re twins who were separated at birth.”

His spine snaps straight. “Nice.”