The suit isn’t immune to magic. I turn it into pyjamas. I let his wings fly free, and Mordelia is properly awed when she sees them—“Wicked!”

We sit on the sofa in the family room and watch Die Hard together. Even half-bladdered, Snow knows this movie well enough to skip through all the worst violence and nudity.

He sobers up a bit along the way.

“This was all right, wasn’t it?” he asks, when I walk him up to the attic.

“Yes, Snow.”

“It’s a start, then, isn’t it?”

“Knock on wood,” I say, knocking on his forehead.

“I wish I could have met your mum. Like, not the ghost version. The real one.”

“That was the real one,” I say softly. “It wasn’t a ghost. It was her.”

“I would have liked to meet her like this.”

I assume he doesn’t mean tipsy and wearing magic pyjamas.

“She was even more traditional than my father,” I say. “When she was headmistress, you could get expelled from Watford for—”

“Hey,” he says, touching my cheek. “You don’t know how she would have reacted.”

“I can imagine.”

“Well, imagine that she would have kept growing, you know? If she’d lived. Her mind would have changed about all sorts of things.”

I look in his blue eyes. “Perhaps,” I whisper.

“Perhaps,” Simon whispers back, smiling. His eyes lose focus for a second, then his brows drop. “She asked me to give you something . . .”

“What?”

Simon holds on to my shoulders and stands on his toes to kiss my forehead.

Then he settles back on his heels and smiles at me. “That.”

SIMON

Baz’s twin sisters wake me up, both of them banging on the door. “Wake up! Father Christmas was here!!”

The door opens, and Baz peeks in. “They can’t open their presents until everyone is awake.”

I groan.

One of the girls pushes the door open. “Wake up, lazybones, you’re ruining Christmas!”

Baz is grinning at me. He’s showered and dressed in fresh clothes. He’s drinking tea.

My pyjamas smell like champagne and gravy.

“Wake up,” the other twin says. “You’re being shocking.”

I manage a quick shower and put on the green jumper and dark jeans that Baz packed for me. I’m only staying to open gifts; I need to get back to London. I wish someone could cast a spell on my aching head—magicians never have aspirin.

When I get downstairs, all the Grimms and Pitches are deeply unimpressed with me. (I suppose there’s only one Pitch here. My one.)

Baz hands me a cup of tea, and Daphne gives me crumb cake. And the girls tear into their gifts.