“WAKE UP, STEFAN. Wake up, my beautiful boy. It’s Christmastime. Don’t you want to go to the Kindlesmarkt?”

A cool hand patted his cheek. Warm fingers touched his brow. Stefan opened his eyes. He was in his own warm bed in the loft above the workshop at home. The room smelled of baking bread and his mother smelled of flowers.

“No,” he moaned into the sheets. “I want to stay here. I want to stay with you.”

He’d been so cold and afraid just a little while ago. But he couldn’t remember why. This was better. Much better than before.

Stefan’s mother smiled, her gray eyes crinkling in amusement. “Then you may stay, just for a little while. And then you must get up!”

Stefan tried to nod, but he could not will himself to move.

• • •

“SOMETHING IS WRONG. It wasn’t like this with Pirlipat,” Christian said. “There was the same stiffness of limb, but within a day or two, she was awake and moving. I don’t understand.”

The three men sat watch over the boy who lay, stiff as a Nativity baby, in the bow of the fishing boat they had hastily commandeered. Zacharias sat beside Stefan, holding his son’s hand. The toymaker’s face was gray as ash. Stefan’s own skin was pale and hard, the softness turned angular as if chiseled rather than alive. The venomous bite had robbed him of his newfound height, as well. Stefan was now less than five feet tall. The captain, a stout Boldavian man, kept his own counsel, his hand on the tiller. They were a long way from Boldavia, as the mouse ran—a full day’s sail up the coast—but still not far enough to be safe.

Christian sighed. He’d seen the streets of the city emptied of mice, as they fled with Stefan, a block of ice, in his arms. They’d all disappeared suddenly, called away by the death of their Queen. If they were to rally, the wave of destruction would be formidable. Certainly more than a catatonic boy and three men could face alone.

It was remarkable how small Stefan had become—he’d been condensed by the Mouse Queen’s venom into a solid, hardened doll, so different from the rangy young man Christian last saw on the deck of the Gray Goose. Stefan’s spirit, if not his actual life, seemed to have been taken from him, along with the softness of his skin. And it was all Christian’s fault.

“The boy has lost his will to live,” Samir said. “He has suffered more these past weeks than that spoiled princess has in her entire life. Yet, his heart still beats, there is breath in his chest. He will wake when he is ready.”

“You don’t know that!” Christian said with anger born of frustration.

Samir merely shrugged. “We’ve all had our share of suffering. I am familiar with its effects.”

“I’m sorry for the charade, Samir. I had to play dead to reach Zacharias. The mice were watching us too closely. Pirliwig would have left him to his fate.”

“No doubt,” Samir agreed. “I see your logic. But it was difficult. Especially for the boy.”

Christian gripped the side of the boat. “At least it worked. I had the solution, a trick up my sleeve. But now?” He waved his hand in the air. “I’m not accustomed to being so helpless.”

“I should think seven years was plenty of practice,” Samir said under his breath, almost—but not quite—extracting a smile.

“Do you know what time of year it is?” Zacharias asked suddenly. A strange smile played across his lips. “It’s Christmastime. Nuremberg will be alight with the season. The Kindlesmarkt . . . I haven’t missed one in thirty years. We should be there, Stefan. Even without toys to sell.”

He had told Christian of the task the mice had set him to. It made little sense to either of them. A single toy soldier, whatever its size, was of no use that they could see.

“A Trojan horse?” Zacharias had suggested. But the soldier he’d made could not hold enough mice to cause any real damage.

In the end, Christian feared that all the mice had managed to do was sully his cousin’s love for making toys. It might be gone for good. Like Elise, and now perhaps Stefan, too.

“Take us home, Christian,” Zacharias pleaded.

“I will,” Christian promised. “And I’ll find a way to save your son.”