Nicholas wondered if he’d fallen from favor with the elf queen. What other explanation could there be for her sending him the most prideful, stubborn creature to walk any plane of existence? If he weren’t already a saint, dealing with Andor Hjalmarson for a thousand years–and a day–without killing him would guarantee Nicholas canonization. As it was, he braced himself for another of the countless arguments he’d had with the elf over the centuries.

Andor scowled, arms crossed. “Every house celebrating Christmas in Philadelphia now has a few unique gifts under the tree, as you requested.”

Nicholas rubbed his temples. Andor’s interpretation of help during Christmas delivery often involved unexpected chaos. “Would you care to explain your actions at the Wilmington household?”

“Not really.”

“Andor, you stripped a man down to his underwear, tied him to the banister with tree garland–which I’m certain you strengthened–and set off the house alarm on purpose!”

“What was I supposed to do? He was robbing them! Don’t you think there’s something a little pointless to delivering gifts to people just so others can steal them?”

The saint began to pace, his once stately bishop’s robes now filthy from a long night of world travel. His back hurt; he was hungry, bone-weary, and desperately needed sleep. Having a small crowd of his gnomes meet him at the gates when he returned with yet another tale of Andor’s escapades wasn’t exactly how he wanted to end the Season.

“If you felt the need to interfere, you could have done so in a less obvious manner.”

Andor refused to budge in his defense. “I left him without a single bruise.” He smiled. “Though he cried as if I’d broken every bone in his body.”

Nicholas groaned. “Son, I can see why your people thought you strange. You have a sense of justice and compassion they don’t possess, and it’s been honed over the years. But you have a clumsy way of going about it. I have a reputation to uphold—kindly, giving, jolly and all that. Children won’t want to stay up and catch a glimpse of me if it becomes known Santa travels with a vigilante elf.”

Andor’s hands curled into fists. Like Nicholas, he began to pace, his long legs eating up the space in the cozy parlor.

“Why not a vigilante? A protector? Have you kept track of how many times we’ve been shot at, fired upon and attacked over the years? I took a crossbow bolt in the leg from John Peasant in 1343 while leaving a gift at the end of his child’s bed. Remember that?”

“He mistook you for a leprechaun bent on mischief.”

Andor growled low in his throat. “Shows what good it does me to glamour myself as one of your nisse so I don’t scare people.”

He had a point. Despite the frivolity and lightheartedness associated with Saint Nicholas and the Christmas season, it was a dangerous business. Nicholas himself carried a few souvenir scars from Christmases past.

He was saved from arguing further by a polite knock on his door. “Enter.”

The door opened, admitting Carolan, one of the diminutive nisse chiefs. His ears, pointed like Andor’s, but much longer and more pronounced, twitched in agitation. “Forgive me, Nikolai, but we have a problem.”

Nicholas stopped short of another groan. There was a hot pot of tea waiting for him and a comfortable bed ready for when he finally had a chance to sleep. It looked as if he might not see either for some time to come. “What now, Carolan?”

“You bypassed a delivery.”

“What?!”

The gnome pulled a small scroll out of his pocket. “Indeed. One Claire Summerlad, age seven, Dallas, Texas, United States.”

Andor snorted. “Not my fault. You assigned me the American east.”

The saint passed a hand over his eyes. “I’m getting too old for this.”

“You’ve been the same age for almost seventeen hundred years. That’s not much of an excuse.”

Nicholas laughed, the sound booming off the walls. Andor had gotten in a small dig, one that restored Nicholas’s good humor, despite his weariness. “Touché, Andor.” He nodded to Carolan. “I’ll take care of it now. It’s one household, a meager one at that. There won’t be much to bring.”

The nisse chief bowed. “I’ll have her things waiting when you’re ready.”

After he left, Nicholas turned to Andor. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Andor raised an eyebrow. “You trust I won’t do something against your rules?”

Nicholas chuckled. Despite his many transgressions during his long servitude to the saint, Andor remained one of his favorite helpers. The nisse didn’t always understand Nicholas’s tolerance for the unruly, often haughty elf, but they hadn’t witnessed what he had.

The early years of the twentieth century had been bleak ones, when men seemed hell-bent on destroying each other in the travesty known as the Great War. Millions died on hillsides and in trenches from wounds and disease. The greatest drain on his magic had taken place then, when gifts weren’t toys or trinkets but nearly dead hope, a pail of food to eat, a loved one returned alive from the battlefield.

It was during one of those years they had passed over a field carved into a maze of trenches. The December air was icy, filled with the scent of sulfur. Nicholas had sent Andor to a small village nearly razed to the ground by war. Only two families remained, widows with children and an old man. When he returned for the elf, he wasn’t at their appointed meeting place. Instead, Nicholas found him in one of the trenches.

A soldier, gut-shot and bleeding out, lay dying in the frozen mud. He was no more than eighteen, and Nicholas remembered him as a small child, vibrant and determined to catch Pére Noël stuffing his shoes with treats by the fireplace.

Andor crouched over him, his graceful hands bloodied as he spread them over the boy’s wound. Nicholas remained silent as the elf spoke softly, ancient words of ljósálfar power that brought comfort and a surcease of pain.

The boy’s stark face relaxed, turned peaceful as he stared up at Andor. “Are you an angel?”

Andor’s pale, unearthly beauty took on an ethereal glow, magic pouring from him as he met the soldier’s gaze.

“If that’s what you wish.”

“I don’t want to die alone.”

Andor’s voice chimed like the music of bells. “You’re not alone. Your forefathers await you.”

The boy’s expression turned beatific as he looked past Andor’s shoulder to a spot beyond the world’s reality. “It’s Christmas,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Merci,” he said on a gentle sigh. His eyes glazed over, and he was gone.

Andor passed a hand over the soldier's face to close his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

When he climbed out of the trench, his broad shoulders were bowed. He looked to Nicholas. “There’s much death here.”

Nicholas clapped a hand on Andor’s shoulder. “Come, lad. We’ve more to do this night.”

That moment had forever changed the saint’s view of Andor Hjalmarson, and while his antics during the Season sometimes drove Nicholas to distraction, he’d never forgotten the elf’s compassion.

“Nicholas?” Andor’s question, laced with impatience, brought him back to the present.

“Hmmm?”

“Are you certain you trust me to behave?”

“No, but I want you along anyway. Gather your things. We’ve a small girl to visit.”