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The snow fell thicker than ever.
Giant flakes buried anything that stood still. The area around the miser’s sleigh, however, was clear. Claus had not stopped pacing. He would not sit until this was over.
It was Christmas.
The triplets urged him to leave. They still had time to make it back to the North Pole. When he insisted on staying, they stopped protesting. They trusted him.
And he trusted Naren.
The sack was still slumped in the back of the sleigh. A young boy was seated in front. The miser’s son sat unusually still. Hands on his lap, his posture was perfect. He stared straight ahead at nothing in particular, blinking every thirty seconds.
He wasn’t dreaming, wasn’t sleeping.
He would wake up refreshed and without a clue he’d been flashed. It would feel as if time had not passed, a section of his consciousness clipped from waking. He wasn’t the only one who had been flashed, just the only one still asleep.
The miser was fully awake.
Just as she had clutched the reins, the triplets floated a flashing crystal in front of the sleigh. They’d carried her, catatonic, to the tower and ignited the illusion before returning to the warehouse. It was risky, what they were doing. But the miser had too much power.
Too much of everything.
The triplets returned to the sleigh and hijacked the microscopic spies. Surveillance streamed in front of them. One was of the tower. The second was the events unfolding inside it.
The miser’s flight was anything but joyful.
Claus remembered his maiden flight well. He had gripped the reins so tightly that indentions remained in his palms for days. It took time to understand what he was doing. There was very little joy in those first few trips.
Certainly not the first one.
She did not recognize the house. She doesn’t remember who she is, Naren had said. As her past unfolded, Claus began to pace. The triplets gathered around the images like a campfire and watched her memories take hold.
The tower was calm and unchanging. There was no hint of the chaos unfolding on the first floor. When the end of her catharsis neared, Claus noticed someone outside the tower. Naren had moved his daughter to safety.
He wasn’t supposed to return.
He had promised Claus he would stay with her until this was over. It was far too dangerous and the miser too unstable. If things went wrong, he needed to be off the island. The triplets could flash her back into a harmless state again. At the very least, they could relocate her to the North Pole. The elven could heal her. Naren was putting himself in danger being that close.
Then he went inside.
Claus and the triplets could only watch. If they charged inside the first floor, it would unquestionably destroy the illusion. Naren, Claus realized, had planned it this way all along. If something happened to him... Claus would blame himself. Everything harmlessly unfolded until the flames licked her arms.
The rest happened so fast.
A tornado of flames engulfed the tower. It circled the reflective walls and climbed into the sky—a column of liquid fire that seemed to erupt from a rising spout. It stood like a skyscraper of bubbling lava.
And then it collapsed.
The bright orange structure of magma hit the ground like a red-hot tidal wave. Liquid fire spilled in two directions, eating through trees, buildings and anything in its way. The fiery river bisected the island in two halves. In one direction, it plowed through the resort and all the way to the ocean. A cloud of steam rose and the water boiled.
The other direction went through the warehouse.
A word lanced through Claus’s head. He involuntarily fell to the ground, only understanding what it said once he covered up.
Down!
The river of fire melted the warehouse doors. It bored through the mountain and spewed out the other side. Its fierce current fell over the sleigh. Its heat was on the back of Claus’s neck and biting into his arms.
He closed his eyes.
The sound of thick fluid ran around them. When he looked up, the liquid fire sizzled over them. The wall of a protective bubble glimmered beneath it. The triplets had thrown a dome over them.
Just in time.
Thick streams of fiery goo ran along its sides until the source was exhausted. It went through the back of the warehouse and the trees behind it. Steam hissed at the ocean.
The mountain collapsed.
It folded on itself. The liquid fire spread beneath the machinery that fed it. Those too bent and crumpled. When the heat faded, a path had been carved from coast to coast. The island was dark. The moon was the only light left. Claus could see all the way to the other side of the island.
The tower was gone.
“Naren.”
The triplets stopped him from running to the scene of fiery collapse. No one could survive, but he had to look, had to make sure Kandi was safe.
One of the surveillance streams was still functioning.
The spies were projecting an overhead view of a perfectly round pool of water. Wisps of steam were rising from where the tower used to be. Claus bent over and looked closely. He wiped his eyes to make sure what he was seeing wasn’t just wishful thinking.
What he saw brought a smile to his face.