Of course he would. I wonder if he’s ever done that for me, on one of my cold and lonely nights. There have been many.

“And when you’re out cheering everybody else up,” I say, “who cheers you up?”

“I’ve always been content enough with my lot.” He drifts off, hesitating, an unspoken but loud in the silence.

We let it hang there.

He touches my hand instead, covering mine with his. I think about what might happen right now if he were an ordinary human man, and not a feeling made personified, a greater purpose I have to share. I think about how I would shift onto my side to face him, tugging on his hand to bring him closer. I would strive to articulate how special I think he is, and how I can’t help but want more and more of something so good that it almost hurts. But then again, if he were an ordinary human man, I wouldn’t have let him get this close—it’s been a gift, this chance to trust someone implicitly. To be myself in the open, grudges and impulses and mistakes and all.

“Are you asleep?” he whispers some time later.

I shake my head. “Can’t.”

“Would you like some help with that?”

With his magic that he claims is down for maintenance. I smile into the pillow. “Okay.”

He tousles my hair in gentle strokes. “I didn’t understand, before I met you,” he tells me. “The whole time that I was up there, without a body, I wasn’t really creating joy. I was only setting the scene for it. Then when I came here, I couldn’t make you feel holiday cheer, not with trees and ornaments and lights. None of that worked. Then, suddenly, you started participating.”

Because I wanted Hall to enjoy Christmas.

“I think, although this comes dangerously close to sounding cheesy,” I reply, “that the holiday spirit might not actually be about those things?”

“I think you’re right.”

“I think it might be about sharing good feelings with others.” There are better ways to phrase this, but I intentionally dance around them all. “Being with special someones, maybe. Spending time together.”

His pitch drops. “I think you’re right about that, too.”

A beat passes. My throat closes up.

“When will you go, exactly?”

“I don’t know. Soon.” His breath hitches. “You’re up to a nine point two on the scale now.”

What absolutely awful news.

I can almost hear that ticking clock in his head as the silence carries on for a while longer, with the sleigh-bells-and-crackling-ember-atmosphere that is distinctly Hall. Then he begins to hum. There’s no spellwork laced into the sound, no holiday fog that will send me off to dreamland. This is a human gesture.

And it’s what I needed. I drift off with his low reverberations against my shoulder, one song blending into another, into another . . .

*

I sit up with a start, as though a lost voice has found its way into my ear, quiet as a breath but noticeable enough to snap my eyes open.