Night cloaked Trinity College, its ancient halls stalked by two figures in black. The younger, golden-haired and striking, moved with purpose. His companion—an old man with milky-white eyes—clutched a grotesque candle shaped like a severed hand, muttering as he shuffled forward.

  "Yes," the elder rasped. "The building remembers. He hid among scholars, posing as a Shakespearean enthusiast... and stole Bacon's legacy."

  "Relentless as ever." The blonde sighed. "This means Bacon pursued the Invisible Arts far earlier than we thought."

  The two—Ulysses and the Canterbury Primate—were here because some secrets demanded the Bureau's highest authority. The Primate's Hand of Glory, crafted from a hanged man’s left fist and steeped in eldritch herbs, masked their presence. Its black glow rendered them invisible, while ensnaring the minds of any who glimpsed it—a thief’s prized tool.

  "Young Bacon left Cambridge at eighteen," the Primate protested. "How could he access forbidden lore then? Those manuscripts required a secret society’s collective wisdom—astrology, alchemy, Hermeticism—not a boy's solitude!"

  "Unless such a circle existed here."

  "Impossible!"

  Ulysses shrugged. "I wasn’t in Albion then. But his grave is empty. I’d wager he faked his death. Or worse... lives on. The Rosicrucians still whisper his name in Europe."

  "Three hundred years? Even awakened supernaturals can’t survive that long without turning vampire—and he’d reject the Embrace. Our archives confirm he died under surveillance."

  "Unless he had help."

  The Primate stiffened.

  Francis Bacon—illegitimate son of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth and her Lord Keeper—had risen swiftly in Parliament. Yet his true obsession was esoteric knowledge. His supernatural intellect birthed groundbreaking (and treasonous) occult works, published during the witch-hunt era.

  The Bureau engineered his downfall: a corruption trial, imprisonment, then house arrest. Yet his subsequent "death" reeked of staging.

  "Are you accusing our predecessors of treason?" the Primate whispered.

  "History repeats. Remember the Thirty Years' War? Catholic France backed Protestant Germans against the Emperor—because unity threatened their borders. Even Church-bound supernaturals choose homeland over faith when pushed. Albion’s schism from Rome proves it."

  "...I’ll monitor Europe. The Doomsday Clock wouldn’t risk raiding Cambridge without reason."

  "Don’t trust European churches. Their leaks fuel the secret societies thriving there."

  "And you?"

  "Home. For Christmas."

  The Primate blinked. Nobles still hunted on Christmas.

  "Read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol?" Ulysses grinned. "All London’s hosting family dinners now. Turkey, gifts by the fire—skip it, and you’re last season."

  "But Christmas honors Christ’s birth!"

  "Few care anymore. Dickens may have reinvented the holiday."

  The Primate sighed. At least Ulysses' festive spirit boded well for his humanity.

  ——

  For Yvette, this Christmas was a first. Last year, stranded in this world, she’d labored over dinner etiquette under Winstole’s drill-sergeant tutelage.

  Now, London dazzled. Oxford Street teemed with shoppers; Norway’s gift—a colossal spruce—twinkled in Trafalgar Square. Turkeys and gifts, once absent here, had bloomed overnight, courtesy of Dickens’ tale.

  Yet as preparations began, one question lingered: would Ulysses return in time?

  Upon stepping into Ulysses’s residence, Yvette was greeted by a festive transformation. A petite spruce stood in the hall’s center, adorned with colorful streamers, while garlands of dark green foliage—studded with unidentifiable berries—draped the walls alongside Christmas ribbons.

  “Merry Christmas, Master Yves,” Winslow intoned, back to his usual dignified self—save for the faint unease Yvette had detected since the incident. Does he remember his unfiltered sleepwalking candor? she wondered.

  Yet paradoxically, he unfailingly presented her favorite pastries. His clumsy attempts at amends amused her.

  Not wanting to heighten his discomfort, she accepted his offerings gracefully, occasionally striking up light conversation—though Winslow invariably found excuses to flee, abandoning her with his silent puppet attendant.

  Today, he tried the same retreat, feigning kitchen duties. But butlers didn’t fetch snacks—and Yvette wouldn’t comply.

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  “Wait!” She produced a wrapped box. “Merry Christmas!”

  Local etiquette demanded immediate unboxing. Winslow peeled back the paper to reveal a wooden-and-silver contraption resembling a miniature crossbow.

  “A bird feeder,” Yvette explained, demonstrating the trigger mechanism that launched grain. “Load the groove, pull this, and—”

  She’d adapted the design from Harold and Maude—a film about a suicidal boy transformed by an eccentric Holocaust survivor who repurposed a train car into a flower-filled home. The old woman’s whimsical feeder had captivated Yvette during her bedridden past life. Now, she hoped it might bring solace to trauma-scarred Winslow, who often fed pigeons.

  “You had this custom-made?” His fingers traced the craftsmanship. “Thank you.” He presented a slender tube.

  Inside, a kaleidoscope—but unlike ordinary versions with colored paper inserts, this one imprisoned raw gem fragments. Twisting the barrel, Yvette gasped as prisms of light fractured into ephemeral constellations. “It’s breathtaking!”

  Winslow permitted himself a smile while her attention was diverted. No awkwardness lingered when those keen eyes weren’t dissecting him.

  Once she set it down, his expression reset to impassivity.

  “How’s Denise?” Yvette changed topics. “Any diagnosis?”

  “Physically unharmed. She’s simply lost the ability to dream. The researchers theorize that expelling the Afflicted purged her corrupted dreams as well.” Winslow adjusted his cuffs. “Her memories are… spotty. She recalls your voice in her mind, but the battle’s climax is blank. A protective amnesia, perhaps.”

  “Pity. Her consciousness ejected me before the finale—I missed the resolution too.” The lie came smoothly. Yvette remembered exactly how the nightmare ended: the abomination she’d summoned unhinging its jaws to devour the dream-wreathed parasite.

  If those horrors dwell in my subconscious… what does that make me?

  Dread coiled in her stomach—visions of waves erasing sandcastles, of being swallowed by the very shadows she hosted—

  “Pity?” Winslow’s voice turned unnervingly fervent. “Shattered porcelain can be reglued, but the mended cup will always fear hot tea. Some fractures defy repair. Only forgetting…” His hands twitched. “Only then does time rewind to wholeness—”

  Abruptly, he registered Yvette’s pallor and recoiled.

  “Forgive me.” He grasped her shoulders. “Ignore that rambling. Look at me.”

  The servant’s bell rang.

  Ulysses’s gifts arrived via creaking doll-drawn cart: a coffin-sized crate for Winslow and a trunk-like parcel for Yvette, both bearing their benefactor’s seal.

  “He wouldn’t have mailed himself, would he?” Yvette eyed Winslow’s monolith.

  The butler withdrew his utility knife. “…I’ll open this later.”

  “He’ll suffocate!”

  The front door chimed.

  “Darling miscreants!” Ulysses swept in, rain-dampened cloak flaring. “Apologies—I’d resigned myself to missing Christmas until my mission concluded ahead of schedule!”

  Winslow muttered about “avoided nightmarish gift-box trauma.”

  “No delays!” Ulysses flourished toward the packages. “Revel in my magnum opus of gifting!” His grin was alarmingly anticipatory—like a child awaiting explosives to detonate.

  Winslow unboxed an industrial absurdity: brass gears, a saddle, and treadles welded into a pedal-powered sewing machine.

  “The Cyclo-Stitch 3000!” Ulysses proclaimed. “Exercise and embroidery! Picture yourself, dear Winslow—pedaling through cross-stitch meadows!”

  Yvette’s laughter erupted as her brain, overwhelmed, rendered the image incoherent.

  White-knuckled, Winslow extended a velvet case. “Your gift, sir.”

  Ah. Yvette recognized the lethal civility of a man plotting homicide via etiquette.

  Ulysses lifted the lid to reveal a medieval penitent’s manual—gold-leafed, reeking of self-loathing piety.

  Their mutual social sabotage left Yvette agape. Next year: gift-wrapped arsenic?

  Mindful of Winslow's mishap, Yvette eyed the oversized trunk warily, only cracking it open after Ulysses' impatient prodding.

  "Oh! A...diorama?" Inside lay a fairytale castle ruin encircled by miniature gardens. The artfully aged stonework, flecked with emerald moss, was draped in rose vines heavy with crimson blossoms. Through elaborate bay windows, she glimpsed intricate interiors - right up to the collapsed tower revealing a tiny pink bed where a princess lay sleeping.

  "The Sleeping Beauty?" Its exquisite craftsmanship delighted her - until a sugary fragrance tickled her nose.

  "Themed as Sleeping Beauty, yes, but entirely edible. Chocolate and sugar construction - even the stained glass is peppermint crystal. Those cobwebs? Cotton candy threads."

  "How could they?! It's too beautiful to eat!" She wished it were clay, something she could display.

  "Best reconsider. In summer heat this confection will wilt grotesquely. The chocolatier's instructions advise consuming the princess while she's pristine." Ulysses indicated the gilded plaque: "Pour Yves de Fisher" with Parisian artisan markings.

  "What a shame..." Winslow's experience made her suspicious. "These candies don't have... surprises, do they? Strawberry sections hiding wasabi? Peppermint masking earwax flavors?"

  Ulysses laughed incredulously. "What demonic image do you hold of me? Refuse it if you distrust."

  "No!" She clutched the box. "Speaking of gifts, I've one for you."

  "Another improving tract? How edifying." His deadpan delivery faltered as Yvette rolled out a heavy trunk.

  Inside, flannel-lined compartments held over a hundred glass slides. Ulysses gloved up, examining one - fossilized wood wafered between panes, growth rings radiating like starbursts.

  "Prehistoric plant specimens. Darwin's team collected these aboard the Beagle." Joseph Hooker had sectioned the fossils, their cellular architecture preserved with startling clarity - botanical time capsules.

  Several bore Charles Darwin's signature, decades before his fame. Yvette had rescued them from obscurity, inexplicably certain they'd resonate with Ulysses. At the Death Art exhibition, she'd glimpsed his poetic nostalgia for things lost to time.

  "Thank you." His childlike wonder contradicted his usual clinical demeanor. What visions did those slides conjure?

  Winslow's puppet served an impeccable Christmas feast. The mulled wine - sugared and gently simmered - became Yvette's instant favorite until Denise's letter arrived:

  Thanking Yvette while reporting her recovery (under "hospital" observation for lingering effects), the girl's guarded phrasing confirmed the researchers' supervision. They'd deemed her harmless - even a future recruit.

  But what life awaited someone bereft of dreams? And what did that make Yvette, who'd summoned the dream-devouring shadow?

  Her musings broke when Ulysses materialized, grinning roguishly.

  "Little Yvette, you've neglected Yuletide etiquette!" He gestured upward where mistletoe berries glowed like rubies.

  "Ancient Albion tradition demands a kiss for luck. Simplified white magic, really."

  "That's ridiculous!"

  "Tell that to the lads who rig fishing lines to dangle mistletoe over unsuspecting girls. Legally sanctioned mischief, I might add-" His smugness vaporized as Winslow's punch folded him double.

  "Shall I fetch your morality tome, sir? Page eighty-nine details lust's damnation."

  Amid their theatrics, Yvette's worries dissolved. This - the warmth, the playful chaos - was Christmas as it should be.

  Perhaps Dickens' Carol endured not as literature, but as embodiment of the Industrial Age's hunger for hearth and kinship.