And indeed, once these torments were removed from their lives, the girls forgot they were cross with each other and launched themselves wholly into the festivities. Apple cider and fairy wine flowed freely, and Ian presented everyone with striped rainbow sweaters he’d knitted himself (and lest they worry that any of them might outshine him, he assured them, he had elevated his own outfit somewhat by adding a Santa hat to his head).

Gifts were passed around: books, video games, toys for Circe, new wool for Ian specially from The Lost Sheep, and much more. Mika, deeply touched by the lovely potted plants and gorgeous vintage journal she’d been given (“Your spellbook looked like it was running out of pages, so Jamie and I thought you’d like this,” Rosetta said shyly), barely had the presence of mind to hand over the jars of tea leaves she’d concocted for each of them, labelled with their names and a silly, whimsically inaccurate list of the ingredients that had gone into them.

Mika watched Jamie, more than a little nervous, and saw the way his mouth kicked up on one side as he read the words beneath his name on his label.

12 of the most attractive scowls

1/2 tablespoon of sandpapery laughter

the best heart

and a whole lot of stardust

He looked up at her then, and the expression in his eyes took her breath away. Her heart stuttered.

Around them, as everyone else read their own labels, there was a chorus of sniffs, laughter, and even the sound of Lucie noisily blowing her nose. Both moved and embarrassed at having provoked such a response, Mika ducked her head, cheeks glowing warm, and ran her fingers over the old, crisp pages of her new spellbook.

After that, it was time for the snowflake hunt: Jamie had constructed a hundred beautiful, delicate, unique snowflakes out of thin craft wood, painted them with iridescent paint in shades of silver, white, and pale blue, and come up with clues to point the intrepid seekers to where they’d been hidden all over the front and back gardens.

As he’d hidden the snowflakes himself, with Lucie’s help, Jamie and Lucie felt it was only fair that they sit out the actual hunt. Mika pointed out that their absence made the teams very uneven, so she joined Ian and Ken with the children’s blessing, and a happy hour was spent scrambling around the frosty gardens trying in vain to find more snowflakes than the kids did. (No, they didn’t try very hard, but Mika couldn’t help feeling that finding eleven snowflakes compared to the girls’ eighty-nine was a tad mortifying.)