Page 71 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Nico saw trouble in Jane’s eyes before he heard the boot step or felt the tingle that meant danger climb up his spine. He spun around in just enough time to catch the duke’s swinging arm, to keep the candlestick from crashing against his skull.

Jane screamed, a sound that turned muffled partway through. But Nico couldn’t see her anymore. Morington walked him backward, his face carved by anger.

Nico fought against him, shoved him backward, then ran. He didn’t want the children waking to the grunts and bone cracks of a fight.

He stepped into the snow-covered garden, his panting breath fogging the air. The snow had stopped, the clouds receded, and the moon was full and bright. He could see the outline of the path through the rosebushes, and he ran.

But Morington was on him, a large hand cuffing his shoulder, swinging him around.

Nico was ready, and he used the force of the spin to slam a fist into Morington’s face.

The duke cursed and dropped the candlestick to cradle his nose with both hands.

Blood dripped onto the cold, white carpet beneath them.

Slowly, over the claws of his hands, he raised his eyes, and just as slowly, a fog rolled in, thick and eerie.

It crept out of the ground and through the tangled rosebushes.

It pressed Nico flat from the sky, and soon he could not see a thing. He cursed, and the duke chuckled.

Footsteps, but blinded by the fog, Nico could not see how close the man was. He stepped backward from each footstep he heard stalking him through the garden. The fog could not have rolled in so completely so quickly.

A glamour. He didn’t need Temple here to tell him that.

“Shit.” A thud followed the curse somewhere in the fog, the sound of a body hitting the ground.

Nico grinned. The duke’s glamour hampered him as much as it did Nico. They were both stuck and stumbling.

“Let up on the fog, Morington,” Nico called out. “Neither of us can swing a fist purposefully in this mess. Besides, I don’t want to swing a fist at you at all. You’ll be my brother-in-law soon. I’d rather keep things happy in the family.”

The sounds of fumbling, twigs snapping. The fog remained.

More footsteps backing Nico farther into the garden.

“Happy? And how will you achieve that? Other than not taking another try at breaking my nose. I asked around about you. You barely have enough to hire a housekeeper. You cannot afford a wife, nor a duke for a brother.”

“True. For the moment. I plan to be a smashing success, though. And I when I am, I’ll buy the hospital from you. I’ll—”

“Nico!” Jane’s voice piercing the fog.

“Stay where you are, Jane,” Nico warned. “Fog’s too thick.”

But it wasn’t. Not anymore. As quickly as it rolled in, it was dissipating, at least the patch between him and the duke’s disembodied voice was. Not disembodied anymore. He stood closer than Nico had realized. And he wasn’t alone.

An unblinking Kringle stood beside him, and that Kringle held Jane. He also held a wicked blade to her throat.

Nico’s heart stopped, a fatal plunge that broke sweat out all over his body as if he stood in the middle of his forge, next to a raging fire. “Release her,” he said through numb lips. That blade—so sharp. Jane’s eyes—so wide with fear. Nico so impotent to save her.

He opened his sense, searched for rust in the blade, some pocket to sneak into the metal.

He found none. The house, then. Plenty of it rusted.

He could call a thousand nails to do his bidding.

But they wouldn’t be silver. And his control over them would be too imprecise.

And he’d rather use his wits than leave a pile of bodies in the garden just beyond the children’s windows.

“Nico!” Jane’s voice again, but not from the Jane in the Kringle’s embrace. Her mouth never moved. Now he saw she never blinked.

A glamour.

Nico lunged at Morington, throwing them both to the ground. His fist met the other man’s nose again, this time with a satisfying crack.

“Only took two tries to break it,” Nico said, pulling his fist back.

The duke wrenched his body side to side, trying to escape. The glamoured vision of Jane and a Kringle had disappeared.

Then there was the real Jane, running through the fog like a ghost.

“Wait!” She hit her knees beside her brother, fumbling with the sack she’d brought with her.

“Whatever you’re searching for, hurry up, love. He’s bucking like a horse.”

“Get the hell off me!” Morington swung a fist at him, but Nico pinned his arms to the ground.

“Oh.” Jane still rummaged through the bag. “I suppose it doesn’t matter which one I use.”

That caught Morington’s attention. “Use what?” He stopped struggling, his gaze flickering to his sister’s bag.

“Potion.” Jane held her hand up to the light of the moon. The fog had fully dissipated, and the moon showed that she held a small glass vial. “I believe that’s the love potion. Could be useful. Make you remember that you used to actually like me.”

“I do like you, Jane. But—”

“And this one”—she held up another vial—“can put you to sleep, I believe. Though I cannot remember how much of it will keep you asleep for how long. Don’t want you to miss an entire year of your life… or maybe I do.”

“Sounds convenient,” Nico said. “Go for that one.”

Morington struggled again, but Nico felt stronger, silver pulsing through his blood. But what was the source? He didn’t have any on him except—

His alchemist ring. It glowed a shocking silver in the moon-bright night, not only pulsing his own strength higher but sharing Jane’s with him, too. He could feel the fluttering fear of her heart along his veins. But he also felt her courage. It wrapped round him like a hug.

His brave beauty.

Her ring glowed, too. Hopefully she felt his confidence. They would come through this together.

“Oh, what about this?” Jane held another bottle up, this one attached to a rope and squeeze bulb like a perfume bottle.

“A memory potion. But it makes you forget things. Is it a few drops to forget a few days? Or is that for a few years?” She shrugged.

“Brewing potions is all quite new to me. I’m afraid I don’t remember.

But, brother, if you open your mouth to tell me what to do with my life one more time I’ll spray this directly into it, and we’ll find out exactly how much you forget. ”

Morington was still beneath Nico. “I do not give you permission to drug me in any way. You would be arrested, Jane.” Something hesitant about his warning, like he didn’t want to make it, like he didn’t want that to happen.

Jane made a fist around the bottle. “Well, I never gave you permission to marry me off to someone I do not know! I never gave our father permission to have me out of wedlock! I didn’t ask to be sent to this hospital for my heart to break over and over again over each lost child ignored by you and everyone else!

That at least has come to some good. I can care for them.

But not if you force me away from here.” She hit a fist against her chest. “I want power over my own life. And I will break what laws I must to take it.”

Morington floundered for words, his mouth opening and closing, opening then closing. Finally, he grumbled, “Let me up.”

“I don’t think so.” Nico held him more tightly.

“I won’t hurt her. Or you. Let me up!” A ducal command, that.

Nico looked to Jane, and when she nodded, he stood, letting the duke roll to his feet and stand as well. Morington wiped blood away from his nose.

“What else am I supposed to do, Jane?” he asked.

“You were born to marry, but you were not born well. Your options are slim, and I am only trying to take care of you. And the estate. And this bloody hospital. I have to take care of everyone when all I’m capable of is fakery.

Illusions. They do not put food in a hungry belly. ”

“Do not worry about me.” Jane managed a step toward her brother. “I absolve you of your responsibility for a bastard sister. I’ll manage well enough on my own.”

“Wait for a year to sell the hospital,” Nico said. He stood beside Jane, a little in front of her to create a barrier between her and the duke. “I’ll buy it from you then.”

“You? You haven’t the funds.”

“We do.” The deep voice came from the dark closer to the house. And then the shapes of five big men appeared out of the night. Military Kringle stepped forward. “The mercenary life is a lucrative one.”

Cozy Kringle joined his brother. “And we want to help the children. So we thought—”

“We could buy the house,” a third Kringle said. “Or loan Sir Nicholas the blunt.”

“I’d like a steady home,” a fourth Kringle spoke, without looking up from the hat he spun in his hands.

“And I’d like ta learn ta build the toys.” This from a fifth Kringle who scratched the back of his neck. “If ya think I can.”

Nico was conscious of his open mouth, of how it produced not a sound.

The mercenaries were… homebodies. He snapped his mouth closed.

“Well, of course you could. And I would very much appreciate a loan. What do you say, Morington? Are you going to be agreeable about all this or is Jane going to pull some other bottle from that bag you’ll like even less? ”

Morington’s face scrunched up. “Are you sure you won’t marry one of the alchemists I’ve talked to? The Master of the Guild says he’ll take you on.”

“No. I’d rather marry a man with nothing and work together to create a future with him than marry a man with everything. I’d be stuck in the same gilded cage with no purpose, no control. And”—she nestled her hand inside Nico’s—“I will not betray my heart by marrying anyone but this man.”

“Do as you please,” Morington said, each word clipped.

“That’s it?” Nico asked. Jane grinned and Morington looked like a sulky little boy. “I do not understand why we could not have talked this through to begin with. Without the punching and the glamours.” Nico straightened his sleeves. “You transcendents are entirely too dramatic.”