Chapter 11 #2
Ronan charges after him, roaring louder than the gingerbread dragon, which thrashes its massive candy cane tail in retaliation.
It swings toward Ronan, narrowly missing him as he ducks and rolls.
The dragon snarls, its caramel teeth glinting, but it doesn’t stop.
The scent of burned sugar fills the air, thick and cloying, as it lunges again, its wings flapping with a sickening crunch.
I’m scrambling to keep up with the chaos and dodging flying candy shards when Nick lands a solid hit to the creature’s underbelly. The gingerbread dragon stumbles back, a jagged crack splitting its once-perfect sugary exterior.
“You’re just an overgrown cookie,” Nick yells, rolling his shoulders like this is a sparring match instead of a battle for survival. “Just crumble already.”
Crinkshaw flicks cocoa across the wing joints; the icing softens and begins to sag. Ronan follows with Sally—less berserker now, more baker—tapping at the seams until whole sheets of gingerbread shear loose, sliding off like badly laid tiles.
The dragon screeches, thrashing as more gingerbread pieces fall from it in a glittering avalanche of sugar and caramel. It is like watching an overbaked biscuit surrender to a polite dunking.
Nick steps in to finish—one swift, decisive stroke to the creature’s heart-shaped gingerbread chest.
The dragon collapses with a final, sugary hiss.
I stand there, wiping caramel off my cheek and taking in the scene.
“I’ve faced tougher biscotti.”
Nick’s laugh is wild. “Told you it’d be a blast, Frost.”
The air settles for a moment, the last remnants of the gingerbread dragon falling to the ground like crumbs from a shattered holiday treat.
But the victory feels empty because it doesn’t change the fact that we’re still deep in the Hollow of Mischief.
And we still haven’t found what we came for.
Meanwhile, Ronan is cleaning cookie dough off his axe, whispering to his blade in tones that would make the heroine in a romance novel blush.
“We’re not done yet,” Nick says, his eyes narrowing as he glances toward the gingerbread house. “Let’s move before this whole place decides to serve us up as dessert.”
The four of us warily approach the gingerbread house. The door swings open as though inviting us in. A wave of stale, sweet air washes over us, and my stomach turns. It smells like whiskey and mince pies. I’m more than ready to be done with this sugar-coated nightmare.
“This place is wrong,” I say under my breath, wiping more frosting from my sleeve. “We’re walking into a gingerbread death trap.”
Nick’s jaw tightens, but his eyes are sharp. “It’s not a trap. Not yet.”
“Not yet?” I repeat, half-laughing in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me. What do you think that dragon was?”
“A message.”
We step inside and everything is made of candy.
Chocolate bricks line the walls. Lollipops rise as pillars.
Candy canes twist into warped arches overhead.
The floor is a gloopy, sugary mess, and my boots make an unpleasant squelching sound at every step.
I give the sagging sacks that line the walls a wide berth, and I don’t pick up any of the parcels that have spilled loose from them.
The air is wrong too. It presses in, like the place is holding its breath.
It’s as if the whole place is watching us.
“Don’t eat any of this,” Nick says.
“I wasn’t going to,” I say, surprised Nick felt the need to warn us, but then I catch Ronan stopping himself in mid-lick of the walls. He coughs and reddens.
I peer over Nick’s shoulder, and my breath catches.
An object sits on the table in the middle of the room. It’s a faintly glowing snow globe, and at the center is a Christmas tree.
Technically, this is a tree.
It just isn’t the tree we’re looking for.
It’s a garnished monstrosity of swirling glitter and cheap plastic.
The lopsided tree inside the globe leans slightly to the left, its tiny ornaments painted in clashing colors.
Every time I look at it, the faux snow churns unnaturally, catching the gaudy string of blinking lights inside the globe.
The effect is both chaotic and nauseating, and it takes every ounce of my self-control not to sweep it off the table and smash it into tiny pieces.
Instead, I throw my head back and scream in frustration, stamping my feet on the ground in protest.
“That’s...not fair,” I cry.
Nick moves toward it, his eyes scanning the strange snow globe with a frown. “This is weird,” he mutters, almost to himself. “What could you possibly want from a tacky snow globe with a wonky Christmas tree in it?”
We circle around it, trying to make sense of what we’re seeing when something catches my eye—a small piece of parchment tucked under the base of the festive ornament. I reach out, plucking the snow globe from its place. The paper is old, the ink smudged, but the message written on it is clear:
Drain the magic and holiday current. Christmas still too powerful.
Siphon the cheer. Re-route wonder. Begin the new era.
I read it twice, my mind racing. Something about it is deeply wrong, and my heart drops into my stomach. The Hollow of Mischief isn’t just a twisted Christmas trap.
This is all part of someone’s plan.
“Nick,” I whisper, my voice unsteady as I hand him the note. “The stupid magic head said the tree is in the Hollow. This isn’t our tree. What’s going on?”
He scans the note, and for the first time since we entered the Hollow, I see something serious hit him. The ease drops away, replaced by a quiet, dawning understanding. He hands the paper to Ronan without a word.
Ronan reads, his brows furrowing deeply.
The change in him is subtler, but no less real—his expression hardens as his stoic demeanor cracks ever so slightly.
Eventually, his gaze lifts from the paper to the tree, and then back to us.
Colder now. There’s no confusion in it. Only an unspoken understanding of how dangerous this is.
“Well, this is great,” Ronan says, his voice tinged with an unseasonal bitterness. “Rogue elves. The Hollow of Mischief. What’s next, Krampus with a clipboard?”
The words hang in the air, a reminder of the escalating absurdity—and danger—of our situation.
The note crinkles in his hand as he folds it deliberately, his gaze locking onto the hideous snow globe with its wonky tree.
The faint swirl of snow inside the twisted creation stirs again, flurrying enough to mock us in a swirl of sparkling glitter and twinkling light.
Nick’s gaze flicks between the tree and the note, the tension in his jaw revealing the thoughts brewing beneath his usually smug composure.
He reaches for the snow globe and studies it, as if daring it to do anything other than mock him.
The glitter slows, then stills, the tiny Christmas tree inside listing further as its blinking lights sputter and fade, as if even the ornament has given up.
With a frustrated shrug, he stuffs it in his pocket.
“Siphon the cheer. Whoever’s behind this...I think their plan is bigger than some minor festive disruption. Someone wants to drain the holiday magic, and they’re not stopping with the tree.”
“It’s bad enough that we don’t get Christmas,” Ronan says quietly. “We’re not letting someone take it from everyone else.”
Nick’s hands clench, and his fangs seem a little longer than they were moments ago.
“Come on, Frost. We’ll find out who’s behind this and toast their plans like chestnuts roasting on an open fire. They’ve got my full attention now—and they’re going to regret it.”
The fury sparking in his silver eyes makes it clear he isn’t speaking metaphorically.