## Emil POV On Christmas Eve, an imp who called itself “Mistlefoe” appeared over Solomon and myself, and made us pick between a kiss and a fight. My oblivious friend foisted the burden of choice upon me. This—this was a pandora’s box, my friend; you wouldn’t know it yet. How would you? I bumbled some sort of unfinished excuse; he barely waited for me to finish before pulling me in for a kiss. Oh, Solomon, Solomon. Were you really that eager, or did you just want to get it over with as fast as possible? Your breath tasted like cigarettes and sparks of hellfire. I could see myself burn and burn until there was nothing left but dying embers. When the gift exchange was about to begin, Aurelian flapped her newfangled bat wings to grab the Santa hat I had donned for the occasion. “You could have just asked me to bend over,” I said to her, hoping it would come across as one of my usual awkward turns of phrase. To my satisfaction, a subset of the audience visibly flinched, including the intended target of my innuendo. Think about it with that clever head of yours, won’t ya? The Mistlefoe appeared again over Solomon and Leslie during their gift exchange. Just as I thought, he was way too comfortable flexing his charms in front of someone he considered feminine. *Don’t you think it’s high time to venture somewhere else, friend?* I thought as I placed my hands over Isha’s eyes—she full on gagged at the scene, like a cat who just smelled something funky—and was quite surprised when she reached up and blocked my view with her hands. How sweet of an ancient being of unadulterated wrath and cruelty. It was more of a relief than she would know. I was the last to retrieve my gift, and Jonny—the only possible giftgiver left—regarded me intently with those big watery eyes of his as I unwrapped it. It was a lego set of a racecar, which did trigger a primal sense of joy within me, and momentarily chased away the darker tangents I had fallen victim to this past while. Of that, I was genuinely grateful. As soon as the gift giving was finished, I dug into the lego set as Isha egged me on. However, traces of a dark twist started manifesting from the little bits of plastic. First, there was that black cat figurine, which was definitely not depicted on the box art, falling out of the box; I pocketed it without giving it a second glance. Then, the more I built it, the clearer it became that instead of the vehicle depicted on the box, the set was turning into that of a Lancia Rally 037, the car that I died in. While I wouldn’t mind owning a model of that car—after all, my death was my own fault, not the car’s—it was clear that something was afoot. And soon enough, after some enthusiastic investigation on Jonny’s part, we saw through the magic—it was all the work of Pris, the lady devil previously seen with Lombardi, who stumbled into the diner on the day of GreenHaven’s grand opening.