“Nice surprise,” I murmured to him.

Sinclair gave a modest shrug. “After the Night Hag attacks, I figured we could use a little happy magic. We’re lucky they cooperated.”

I glanced around at the crowd, the upturned faces filled with wonder. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

The frost fairies’ visit didn’t last long, only a few minutes, but Sinclair was right—it was enough to make the night magical. At an unspoken signal, they vanished all at once, spiraling back upward into the clouds and darkness. Even though I knew what temperamental little bitches they were, my heart ached at the absence of their beauty.

A voice arose to fill the void with the opening lines of “O Holy Night”—a mortal, human voice, tremulous at first, but gaining confidence and settling into a soaring soprano.

It was the youngest of the carolers, a tall, awkward girl still in her teens, the too-short sleeves of her costume baring knobby wrists as she clasped her hands before her and sang, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

I wanted to cry, or hug her. Maybe both.

It was a song of redemption and hope, and humility, too, something I’d never been good at. But that night, I felt it. I gazed at the shining tree: El Arbol, my roots. All that I loved. A star shone atop it.

Hope.

I whispered the word to myself. “Hope.”

All too soon, it was over, the last notes fading. The young woman singing blinked her eyes open, looking surprised at herself. Friends and strangers alike laughed self-consciously and hugged one another. Gus the ogre wiped away a surreptitious tear as the crowd began to disperse.

“Did you get footage of it?” Sinclair asked Stacey as she came over to join us, camera in hand.

Her face was still touched with wonder. It made her look younger, or like a softer version of her younger self. “Yeah, I did. That was pretty spectacular.”

“And it’s a safer bet than those ghostbusting videos you were posting earlier,” I observed.

Stacey’s expression hardened. “I was just doing my job.”

Oops, that was on me. It was hard to lose the habit of a lifetime. I raised my hands. “I know, I know.”

Sinclair cleared his throat. “So . . . anyone up for joining us for a drink at the Shoals?”

As much as I wanted to hold on to this feeling of transcendent humanity, I really didn’t want to sit around in a bar trying to remember to be polite to Stacey Brooks while she fawned over my ex-boyfriend.

“No thanks,” Jen said firmly, hooking her arm through mine. “We’re going to hang out here for a while and watch the snow fall. Right, Daise?”

“Right.” I snuck a guilty glance in Lee’s direction. “Okay by you?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

After saying good night to my mom and Lurine and Gus as they made their way back to Lurine’s Town Car, where her driver was patiently waiting, the three of us crossed the street to the playground across from the park, sitting on the swings and passing our thermoses of schnapps-laced cocoa back and forth, kicking our feet idly against the well-worn grooves in the gravel. The big spruce continued to blaze with Christmas lights. Slowly and steadily, big flakes of snow continued to fall, sparkling in the glow of the streetlights and accumulating on the frozen ground.

“We could make snow angels,” Jen said in a speculative tone.

“We could,” I agreed. “Or not.”

“Do you think there really are angels?” Lee asked unexpectedly, taking a swig from Jen’s thermos. “Thrones and powers and dominions and whatnot? The whole Judeo-Christian pantheon?”

Both of them looked at me.

I looked up. Snow fell from the night sky, dizzying from my narrow perspective. Or maybe it was the schnapps. “I guess there must be.”

“Why?” Lee’s voice held simple curiosity.

“Because I know my father is real,” I murmured, taking a sip of cocoa. “Belphegor. So it only makes sense that his opposite must exist.”

“You’ve met him?” Lee asked me.

I shook my head. “Not exactly. But we’ve . . . spoken. I know he exists. I know how to invoke him.”

“Daise,” Jen said quietly.

“It’s okay.” I wrapped my gloved hands around the thick chains of the swing, pushing off against the snow-covered gravel with my feet. “I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t.” Once again, I set the memory of my nightmare aside, holding fast to the light. “It’s just that . . . yes. I think there are all kinds of things that exist on the far side of the Inviolate Wall, angels and demons included.”

“What about God?” Lee asked.

“Whose God?” I said. “Catholics? Lutherans? Baptists? Calvinists? What about the other apex faiths like Judaism and Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Neither do I.” Leaning backward, I pumped my legs, making the swing soar higher. “I mean, they can’t all be right, can they?”

“Why not?” Jen asked reasonably. “There are different gods here on earth, aren’t there?”

“Just the chthonic ones,” Lee said. I raised my eyebrows at him in passing. “The ones with ties to the underworld,” he clarified. “Those are the ones that have endured, right?”

I stilled my swing. “Yeah, but they’re . . . diminished. Their demesnes are limited. They’re not even doing battle with each other, let alone seeking dominion over the entire earth.” At least I hoped not. I was still uneasy about that whole Hades business. “I don’t think you can say the same thing for whatever God or gods are on the other side of the wall. So who’s right?”