Page 48 of Blood and Bells

I look at him.

“But I didn’t say it had to look like one of Celeste’s events,” he continues. “And I didn’t say you had to do it all yourself to prove you deserved the job. There’s a difference between high standards and impossible ones. You’ve blurred the line.”

“I just want people to feel like it matters,” I say, my voice quieter now. “Like it’s… more than decorations and mulled wine and hoping for the best. Everyone thinks event planning is just logistics. But it’s more than that. It’s a feeling. It’s looking at what you’ve created and seeing the joy people find in it. In knowing the work you did made the world a little better, even if it’s only for a night.”

Frank watches me while I pick at the couch upholstery.

“That’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“You’re talking to someone who shoots people with arrows to make them fall in love,” he says. “Which is not even remotely how arrows work. My bar for stupid is a lot higher than yours.”

I laugh, blowing on my mug before taking a sip. It burns all the way down, and I gasp. “How much of this is pure liquor?”

“Probably eighty percent. Figured you might need something stronger.”

He knocks back his own drink with practiced ease. “You’re good at this,” he adds. “You make people care. That’s half the job.”

“And the other half?”

“Not running yourself into the ground trying to prove it.”

I let out a breath, not quite a laugh.

He sets his mug down and reaches for his coat, like the conversation has already moved on in his head.

“Frank,” I say, before he can fully shrug it on. “Were you ever going to tell me what the tree actually does?”

He stills, one hand caught in his sleeve.

For a second, I think he might dodge it.

Instead, he exhales and finishes pulling the coat into place.

“No,” he says simply. “It wouldn’t have changed anything you needed to do. And I didn’t want you worrying about things you can’t control.”

“It would have been nice to know what I’m trying to fix.”

“You already knew the important part. That it matters.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”

He hesitates, then relents a fraction.

“Around here, when we talk about the magic of Christmas, we’re not always being metaphorical,” he says. “The tree…keeps things running the way they’re supposed to. The festival, the town—people show up expecting something, and the tree helps make sure they find it.”

The room feels a little too still.

“And now it’s gone.”

“Yes.”

The rim of the mug is no longer warm as my thumb drags along it. “You should have told me.”

“Maybe,” he says. “But it wouldn’t have changed the plan.”

“And the plan is?”