“Special pens for writing in your grimoire,” I informed her proudly. “They have non-smudging, waterproof ink, and that paper wrapped around them is the alchemic recipe for making more.”

“What? No way!” She slid the ribbon off and unfolded the recipe. “Wow, thanks Tori!”

“I got Katherine’s help. She has recipes for more colors if you want them.”

Grinning, she gave me a tight hug, then hopped up and pulled her grimoire out of her suitcase. As she tucked the recipe between the pages, I noticed a bit of gold sticking out of the back cover.

I pointed. “What’s that?”

“Nothing!” she blurted, then realized her blush was giving her away. “It’s a card from Kelvin Compton.”

The super-genius alchemist had made a full recovery by Saturday morning. From what I’d seen, being poisoned by his own apprentice had inflicted no harm on his ego either.

“What kind of card?” I asked curiously.

“A Christmas card … and a get-well card.” Her blush deepened. “He also, um …”

“Oh my god!” I gasped. “He asked you out, didn’t he? That old pervert!”

“What? No, no.” She gazed at her grimoire. “He invited me to apply for an apprenticeship with him.”

I leaned back in surprise, a squirmy feeling in my stomach. “That was fast.”

“He’s not interviewing new candidates until spring, but he wanted me to think about it.”

Oh, okay. That wasn’t quite so bad. At least he wasn’t trying to replace his deceased apprentice mere days after his tragic death.

“And are you going to think about it?” I asked.

She didn’t look at me and instead poked the gold card back into her grimoire. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s a great opportunity, but I’m not sure I could live anywhere near here after … everything.”

Setting her grimoire on the nightstand, she sank down onto the mattress beside me. The girl was so determined to be positive that I couldn’t get a read on how much the events of the past week had affected her, but I was guessing she’d be having wolf-related nightmares for a while.

I slung my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Give it time and see how you feel in a few months. You don’t need to decide anything now.”

“Yeah.” She shook off her apprehension and beamed happily. “I can’t wait for dinner. Lily and Anna are freaking out over how fancy it’ll be.”

Sin’s parents and older sister had arrived last night to join the two youngest Bakers. Earlier this morning, their family, the Sinclairs, Kai, Ezra, and I had gathered in the smoking room—the living room had been trashed in Friday night’s battle—to exchange gifts.

It’d been a movie-worthy holiday event. Christmas music had played softly from a stereo in the corner, and a breakfast buffet of croissants and fruit had been laid out on the coffee table. We’d had mugs of cocoa with whipped cream to sip on, and a Christmas tree—salvaged from another room—had flashed its lights as sunlight streamed through the windows.

“Have you given the guys their presents yet?” Sin asked, interrupting my reminiscence.

Nerves flitted through my belly. “They’re next.”

“I get why you wanted to give me my gift in private”—she shot an amused look at the lingerie—“but why didn’t you give them their gifts this morning?”

“Just because.” I twitched my shoulders. “I should do that before they wander off in search of turkey.”

As I stood, Sin gave me an encouraging slap on the butt. “Don’t look so panicky. Whatever you got them, they’ll love it.”

I could only hope.

Slipping out of her room, I got five steps down the hall before the three mages in question surrounded me. Aaron blocked my path, hands on his hips, while Kai and Ezra flanked me.

“Thought you could sneak off without giving us our presents, did you?” he asked in a villainous growl.

I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. I was just going to get your gifts.”

“A likely story.”

“Haven’t you opened enough presents?”

His grin flashed. His parents had given him several exquisite suits and dress shirts—preparing him for future guild interviews, no doubt. My gift from Tobias and Valerie was way better: three bottles of fine liquor. I’d already packed them snugly in my suitcase so I wouldn’t forget them, which would be a complete and utter crime against alcohol everywhere.

Squeezing between Aaron and Kai, I waved them to follow me. “All right. Gift time.”

They shadowed me into my bedroom. Butterflies tumbled in my gut as I opened the otherwise empty bottom drawer of my dresser and withdrew three rectangular gifts wrapped in holly-patterned paper with green bows.

Gulping, I checked the labels, then passed a gift to each mage.

Aaron’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline as he weighed the present in his hand. “You got us all the same thing? Isn’t that a bit lazy?”

I folded my arms, fighting back nerves. “Shut up and open them.”

Snickering, he tore into the paper. On either side of him, Kai and Ezra did the same. Three matching photo albums with leather covers emerged from the torn paper, and the guys peered down at their gifts like they had no idea what to do with them.

My confidence shriveled.

They flipped their albums open. Aaron’s eyes widened and Ezra’s soft intake of breath cut through me, reinforcing my doubts. Maybe this had been a dumb idea.

Photos of us filled each album. I loved capturing moments with a quick snap of my phone camera, and on every outing—when we weren’t fighting for our lives—I took at least one picture. Usually multiples. The albums contained page after page of our grinning faces, spanning the seven months we’d known each other.

“They aren’t exactly the same,” I mumbled. “Some of the photos are, but others I chose depending on—”

Album in one hand, Aaron swept me into his arms. I wheezed as he crushed the air from my lungs, then Kai was pulling me away to squash me in his own hug. Lastly, Ezra wrapped me in a warm, gentle embrace, and I silently sniffed back the happy tears threatening to leak down my cheeks.

“This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten,” Aaron declared, flipping pages. “Ha! I’d forgotten about this photo—look at your face, Ezra.”

He tilted his album toward the aeromage, who chuckled. “I remember. We were toasting after the Yaletown vampire job and I knocked my drink off the bar.” He canted his head. “What’s that one?”

I peered upside-down at a shot of Kai scowling darkly while Aaron laughed. “Oh, we were out for lunch and two girls started crying when Kai wouldn’t let them sit with him.”

Aaron snorted. “Oh yeah! And right after you took the picture, they tried to—”

“Yes, yes,” Kai interrupted, seizing Aaron’s shoulder and steering him to the bedroom door. “It was very funny for the rest of you. You should put your album somewhere safe and get ready for dinner.”

“But I want to—”

Kai shoved him through the door, then looked back to meet my amused gaze, his dark eyes sparking with humor. “Thank you for the present, Tori.”

I giggled as he herded Aaron down the hall.

“It’s a wonderful gift,” Ezra murmured. “Thank you.”

My heart did a skip, hop, and tumble as I realized we were alone for the first time since Friday. Since the mistletoe. Since our deadly battle against Brian and his wolves.

I’d lied to Aaron and Kai about Eterran’s role in that fight without considering that Ezra’s story might contradict mine, but when he’d woken from the sleeping potion, he couldn’t remember anything past our struggle with the alpha shifter.

And so I’d had no choice but to lie to him too. My secret pact with Eterran hung over me, a hard pit of guilt and anxiety lodged in my stomach.

Pushing those worries aside, I smiled nervously at Ezra. “I have one more for your album.”

He watched as I opened my bedside drawer. Pulling out a brown envelope, I offered it to him. With a curious smile, he opened the flap and slid out a glossy photo.

Our faces filled the image, my lips bright red from Sin’s fancy lipstick and his hair combed back, a gray tie snug around the white collar of his dress shirt. I was reaching for the phone he held, my lips forming the word “wait” as I tried to adjust the camera angle. He, however, wasn’t looking at the camera. His face was turned toward mine, a grin stretching his lips, his mismatched eyes bright with silent laughter as he snapped the picture before I was ready.

Though it wasn’t anything close to my most flattering photo, it was my new favorite shot of him. Not just because of his smile and laughing eyes, but because of the way he was looking at me, his arm around me, holding me close as I reached for the camera, oblivious to his gaze.

He stared at the picture for a long moment, then grinned. “I told you it was a perfect photo. I love it.”

My heart added a delighted leap to its acrobatics. He opened his album, turned to the last page, and slipped the new photo under the protective plastic.

“Ezra …” I began.

He glanced at me, wariness in his eyes. He’d picked up on my tension.

“Ezra, can we …” Deep breath. I could do this. “Can we, um … talk about …”

The kiss. Could we talk about the kiss? The one where he’d crushed his mouth to mine like he needed me to breathe? The one that had rocked my world right out of orbit?

I was shit at this kind of thing. Discussing emotions always made me choke and run away. But this … I needed to talk about this. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I needed to know what it meant.

“We should get ready for dinner,” he murmured, his gaze sliding away from mine.

My nerve almost broke but I held my ground. “Why can’t we talk about it?”