Hall’s barely listening. “Isn’t it lovely?”

Gold Rush’s display window is done up in festive lights. Next door, the Blue Moose Café is done up similarly, bulbs wrapped around the moose antlers on its hanging sign. They’re both hopelessly outshined by the town house, however, which Hall’s evidently been adding to. Along with enough blinking decorations to rival the Las Vegas strip, he’s put an inflatable Santa Claus on the roof, boots sticking out of the chimney, and Christmas trees all over the small front yard, which are bathed in an inordinate quantity of snow. “I remember when I asked for a beach mansion,” I sigh wistfully.

“Your mouth said Hawaiian villa but your heart said gingerbread fairy tale,” he replies sagely, jumping out of the car before I can poke him.

“On second thought, if we’re taking shortcuts, I want you to raise the Titanic out of the ocean and put it in Grandma’s backyard. It’s going to be my white elephant. Imagine the look on everybody’s faces.”

“No can do, we’re not using magic to get whatever we want today.”

“And by we, you mean me, because you’re certainly still using it for yourself,” I return grumpily.

He deliberately looks away. “It’s in my nature to use it constantly, so I can’t help it. But it isn’t in yours. Shame on you for trying to break the rules.”

I splutter, and he walks faster to avoid being called out.

I follow him inside the store, edgy by habit even though it doesn’t matter if someone tells Grandma they spotted me here. And if I stay in town for good (which, until Hall gives in and makes my beach house a reality, looks likely), I’ll be permanently here. At some point, my family will notice. They’ll ask why I moved to this town, how long I’ve been here . . .

The bell dings as the door opens. Hall enjoys it so much that he backtracks and reenters simply to hear it ding again. A guy around my age is browsing, and he goes bug-eyed at the sight of me. My stomach pinches, knowing what’s going to happen next, already feeling like a piece of public property. He’ll ask me to autograph a receipt. He’ll want a selfie. If I say no, he’ll call me awful, unspeakable names—

“I love your sweater,” he remarks, then moves on. I watch to see if he’ll covertly slip out his phone, but he doesn’t. I’m in shock.

“Uh, thanks,” I reply, not loud enough to be heard.

“Mine’s nice, too.” Hall glances down at his own let’s get elfed up sweater, then covers himself in horror. “I didn’t put that there!” He quickly changes it to a rated-G oh, deer.

“What happened to a proper day of doing things properly?” I can’t help but tease.

He sidesteps behind a rack of keychains and lets out an annoyed exhale.

The store is tiny but whimsical, with trellises of ivy against one wall, the others brick and outfitted with modern industrial-style shelves. The Milky Way is painted on the ceiling. I fill my basket with multiple sets of finger paints, because it’s important to nurture the arts in my beloved nieces and nephews, whom I cherish, and not at all because their parents are going to hate dealing with finger paints. Hall asks a friendly woman who works here if they’ve got “anything to do with magic” and is soon laden with books. Iron and Magic by Ilona Andrews. Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop. Freddie Mercury: A Kind of Magic.