I'm sure some of you were disappointed with the last chapter, so I'm giving you the next chapter early to make up for it. Don't you hate it when Christmas stuff keeps popping up earlier and earlier each year? Oh well, all aboard the feels train!

The holidays were coming. One morning in mid-December, the Magic Kingdom awoke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The river and the lake on the school grounds were frozen solid, and the Blight twins got in trouble for setting traps that catapulted snowballs at whoever got caught in them. Mail was more difficult to receive, as Pedro had to battle his way through the stormy skies. The ghosts began traversing the halls singing spooky versions of carols, such as "We Wish You A Scary Christmas" and "God Rest Ye Merry Grinning Ghosts".

Hiro and his friends could hardly wait for winter break. While the common rooms and Great Hall had roaring fires, the corridors were drafty and icy. Bitter winds rattled the classroom windows. Worst of all were Professor Yzma's classes down in the dungeons, where their breath rose in mists and they huddled as close as possible to their hot cauldrons.

"C-c-can't wait to get back to L.A. for break," Anne shivered. "The coldest it gets there is sixty degrees. What about you, Sprig?"

She turned to her partner. Sprig had completely frozen over in a block of ice.

"Professor, it happened again!"

"You know," said Kay to no one in particular, "I almost feel sorry for all those blokes who have to stay at school over Christmas. Guess they're just not wanted at home."

He was looking over his shoulder at Hiro as he spoke. Sasha and Boscha giggled. Hiro, who was measuring out spoonfuls of fire bee honey, ignored them. Kay was acting more unpleasant than usual since the Questing match. Disgusted that Felinus had lost, he tried to get everyone laughing at how Hiro could join a rodeo with his bucking robot act, until he realized nobody found it funny since they were more impressed that Hiro stayed on Baymax and flew the Mus team to victory. So Kay, jealous and angry, returned to taunting Hiro about his lack of a proper family.

In truth, Hiro had meant to return home to Aunt Cass for Christmas like he promised, but the search for the mystery kings drove it from his mind. He felt slightly better knowing Peter would be staying, as well as Edric, Emira and Hunter. Besides, making sure whatever Aladar was guarding was safe from Lilith took precedence over his own holiday. He'd just tell Aunt Cass that he got so caught up in schoolwork that he forgot to let Eda know he'd be leaving. Come to think of it, when was the last time he wrote to Cass?

When class ended and everyone left the dungeons, talk turned to what presents they hoped they would get.

"Santa's gonna bring me a new sword or dagger, I know it!" Peter said excitedly.

"Santa?" said Hiro disbelievingly.

"Don't tell me you don't believe in Santa!"

"Well, no, I mean…I just don't know how one guy can deliver millions of presents around the world in a single night. It doesn't match with anything I've ever studied."

"Maybe it's because he uses, oh I don't know, magic?" Melissa replied, waving her wand in front of Hiro's face.

"…Yeeeeaah, okay, you've got a point," Hiro admitted; no matter how much he was getting into magic, it was still difficult to reconcile some things from his standard scientific views. "Still, has anyone here ever actually seen Santa, just to be sure?"

"No, but I haven't heard of anyone who's been let down by him before. He's never missed the big night before and he never will."

"My parents told me one time when they were kids, a skeleton took over his job and delivered spooky presents to everyone in the world that year. That must have been the best Christmas ever!" Zach gushed.

Hiro listened to the others around him talk about how they thought Santa worked. None of their theories aligned with each other in the slightest.

"This one podcast I listened to revealed he's secretly an alien living among us under the name Carl Featherbottom."

"I heard he sends teams of highly trained elves ahead of him to prep the houses he visits and put everyone to sleep. That's why you never see him."

"Nah, he doesn't have any elves. He gets all his toys from a magic sack that gives you anything you ask for."

"I heard that if you kill him, even if he accidentally dies on your roof, then you're forced to take his place and become the new Santa. And if you try to weasel out of it, Christmas is ruined forever."

"That's…really messed up," said Hiro. "So if I ask him for something ridiculous like tap-dancing underwear or singing food, he'll actually bring it to me?"

"I wouldn't do that," said Zach. "Look, just ask him for something you really need that you forgot instead of something uber-specific, and chances are it'll turn up Christmas morning. What have you got to lose?"

Hiro smirked and rolled his eyes.

"All right, fine."

He handed Zach his phone.

"Just put in his email address and I'll be happy to send a request his way."

Zach did so.

"He started taking emails a long time ago," he said nonchalantly.

A large fir tree blocked the corridor ahead. The two enormous feet sticking out at the bottom and a loud puffing sound told them Ralph was behind it.

"Hello, Ralph, would you like any help?" Wendy said, sticking her head through the branches.

"No thanks, Wendy, I'm fine. Come on to the Great Hall, you won't believe how it looks!"

So the three of them followed Ralph and his tree to the Great Hall. Professor Owl stood on a podium with the school choir practicing for the upcoming pageant while Professor Flora and Lilith were busy with decorations.

"Ah, Ralph, the last tree. Would you put it in the far corner, please?"

The hall looked spectacular. No less than twelve towering Christmas trees stood around the room, each one decorated differently from the other. One was festooned with colorful toys, another with silver and gold ornaments, blooms of holly and poinsettias adorned a third, and so on. Tiny blue fairies skated past the windows, spreading frost spirals on the glass. Even some of the snowflakes that fluttered from the ceiling were fairies gracefully waltzing downward in snowflake skirts.

"How many days have you got left until vacation?" Ralph asked.

"Just three more," said Wendy. "Oh, that reminds me – Hiro, Peter, we have half an hour before lunch. We ought to be in the library."

"The library?" said Ralph, following them out of the hall. "Don't tell me they've already piled on homework for over the break?"

"Oh no, we're not working," Hiro said brightly. "Ever since you mentioned the two kings we've been trying to figure out who they are."

"You WHAT?!" Ralph was shocked. "Listen, I've already told you – drop it. It's for me to know and you to not found."

"We just want to learn who King Edmund is," said Wendy.

"Unless you'd like to tell us and save us the trouble?" Hiro added. "We found King Frederic easy enough, he's the king of Corona. But we must have been through hundreds of books already and we can't find King Edmund anywhere. Just give us a hint."

"I'm not sayin' anything," said Ralph flatly.

"Guess we'll have to find out for ourselves then," Peter shrugged, and they hurried off to the library leaving Ralph feeling quite disgruntled.

They had indeed been searching for the kings' names ever since Ralph let them slip, because how else were they going to find out what Lilith was trying to steal? The trouble was, most of their studies led them to dead ends. They did find King Frederic's name in an encyclopedia about kings, but the only information about him listed there was that he started the annual Corona Lantern Festival. Hiro could've sworn he read the name Corona before, but he couldn't put his finger on where. There was no mention of King Edmund at all in the book. He also wasn't in Notable Monarchs of the Twentieth Century, and neither he nor Frederic appeared in Recent Magical Achievements. They weren't in A Study in Recent Developments in Fantastical Realms or Important Modern Magical Discoveries either. And then there was the sheer size of the library: tens of thousands of books, thousands of shelves, hundreds of narrow rows, and so little time to go through them all.

Wendy took out a list of subjects and titles she wanted to search while Peter strode off down a row of books and started pulling volumes off shelves at random. Hiro wandered over to the Forbidden Stacks. For a while he'd been wondering if Edmund was hiding in there somewhere. Unfortunately, you needed a special permission slip from one of the teachers to look in there. He thought about going to Eda since she was usually the most laidback of the teachers, but he was worried about her asking too many questions. These were books containing information about advanced levels of spell casting, and the darker side of magic that wasn't taught in normal classes. Hiro was sure even Wendy would be abhorred by the thought of wandering around in there.

"What are you looking for?" a deep echoing voice rumbled behind him. It was Malphas, the demon librarian. One glowing golden eye glared down at Hiro through a mess of long tangled hair.

"Um, nothing," Hiro gulped. Malphas parted his hair with one claw, revealing a griffon's face.

"Okay, then you're gonna have to, like, move on then, man," he said, his voice suddenly sounding much lighter and nasally than before. "I can't even have people standing around here doing nothing, it's, like, a major pain to me".

Hiro was taken aback by the change in his tone, but quickly did as he was told, wishing that he had thought of a good cover story sooner. He, Peter and Wendy had already agreed they'd better not ask Braxas where they could find Edmund and Frederic. They were sure he'd be able to tell them, but they couldn't risk Lilith learning what they were up to.

Hiro waited outside in the corridor to see if his friends had found anything, but he wasn't very hopeful. They had been looking for two weeks after all, but as they only had odd moments between lessons it wasn't surprising they'd found nothing. What they really needed was a nice long search without Braxas breathing down their necks.

The last night before winter break started and the students left for home, the school was entertained by the annual holiday pageant. Professor Owl led the choir in a range of Christmas tunes, both familiar and new to Hiro. Students re-enacted the stories of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, setting the stage aglow with the light of red, green, black, and blue and silver candles. Professors Plantar and Flora enchanted several flowers and mushrooms to dance to the Nutcracker Suite accompanied by a troupe of lively fairies. The ghosts recited a version of Zach's story about a skeleton usurping Santa Claus entirely in rhyme ("See? Told you it happened!" he said as everyone applauded once they were done). And finally, Merlin led them in all in one last sing-along:

From All of Us To All of You,

It's good to have you with us,

You can't go wrong, just sing along,

And have a Merry Christmas!

Everyone went to bed full of good cheer, but Hiro, Wendy and Peter still couldn't shake the kings from their minds.

"You will keep looking while I'm away, won't you?" she asked as they climbed into the common room. "Mother knows a lot of stories so I'll ask what she knows about Corona and King Edmund, and perhaps Father might too since he works at the bank."

"All right," Peter sighed, "even though we must have looked through the library a hundred times already."

Wendy leaned in with a small secretive smile playing on her lips, and whispered –

"Not in the Forbidden Stacks."

Whatever Peter and Hiro were expecting, it wasn't that. Wendy grinned in defiance of their gobsmacked looks.

"Good night. Happy Christmas," she said cheerfully, and she went off to bed.

"I think we're a bad influence on her," Hiro whispered to Peter.

Once the vacation began in earnest, however, Hiro and Peter had too much of a good time to think about research. They had the dormitory to themselves and the common room was mostly empty, so they could get the best seats in front of the fire. They roasted marshmallows while plotting ways to humiliate Kay, which were fun to talk about even if they would never work.

Peter also started teaching Hiro a game called Maelstrom. It was a lot like Battleship except the miniature boats could actually sink each other. They could also move around their half of the board to elude the enemy's firing range, but if they got too close to the raging whirlpool in the center, they were sucked in with no hope of escape. It was very much like commanding troops in a naval battle. Peter, who loved a good fight and knew a surprising amount about pirates and ships, was in his element, and beat Hiro every time they played.

On Christmas Eve, Hiro went to bed looking forward to the food and fun the following day. When he woke early the next morning, he never expected to see a mountain of presents sprawled beneath the enormous Christmas tree in the common room. Peter was already sitting on the floor unwrapping his gifts.

"Merry Christmas Hiro! Come open your presents!"

Hiro sprinted down the dormitory steps and all but dived on to the pile of boxes. The first parcel was wrapped in thick brown paper and had "To Hiro, From Ralph" scrawled on it in black marker. Inside was a round holey pendant that looked almost like a big whistle carved from stone on a simple string. Ralph had obviously made it himself. Hiro blew into it – it sounded almost like a flute.

"Nice ocarina," Peter said admiringly. "Now we can play music together!"

"Fat chance of that if my playing's as good as my singing," Hiro chuckled, remembering the scolding he received from Professor Owl for being out of tune during their last class.

"I think I know who that one's from," Peter pointed to a lumpy bit of newspaper nearby.

He showed him a simple green knitted beanie with a red feather embroidered on it, similar to Peter's favorite hat.

"Fagin makes us something from yarn every year. Looks like you got one too."

Hiro opened it up. There lay a white knitted hat with two black felt circles sewn on connected by a line of black yarn; it was Baymax's head in beanie form.

"You don't have to wear it," Peter said.

"It's not bad," laughed Hiro, and he put it on. "Keeps my ears warm."

Wendy sent him a package full of Wonder Balls and assorted Christmas sweets. His next present was a healthy-sized box from Aunt Cass. What was inside could have made him weep – a big bag of gummy bears (which he hadn't had since he left for school) and a framed photo of Aunt Cass hugging him. Their faces were smeared with ice cream and they were laughing hysterically. Hiro remembered that day well; she took him out for a treat after one of his first robot test runs went awry, and managed to cheer him up when he was down.

Ignoring the lump in his throat, he opened the next gift. It was a snow globe. Inside the glass dome was –

"The café?"

A perfect miniature model of the Lucky Cat Café and the apartment above, right down to the little cat statue sitting over the threshold. A sudden pang of homesickness hit Hiro like a dart. He shook the globe and watched the tiny flakes swirl around the café like a blizzard.

At once, the view inside the globe changed to Aunt Cass brewing coffee in the kitchen humming "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" to herself. The apartment was decked out for the holidays, but Cass lacked any of her usual yuletide cheer. She looked almost as disheveled as she did when she was trying to keep away Hiro's acceptance letters, but much more tired and lost. She sat alone at the table and sighed. Mochi jumped on to her lap and mewed softly. Cass smiled a little as she stroked him, though it never quite reached her tearing eyes. The vision cleared, leaving nothing but the miniature café and the reflection of Hiro's guilt-ridden face staring back at him. Then he noticed the card in the box:

Family is the greatest gift of all.

Merry Christmas, Hiro

- S.C.

"I gotta go talk to her," he murmured. Hiro put down the snow globe and got to his feet. "I promised…"

"Wait, there's one more present left!" said Peter. "Don't you want to open it first?"

Hiro paused at the foot of the stairs. He knew he should go call Aunt Cass – and yet…

"Well…what's one more present?" he thought.

He returned and unwrapped the final gift. It was an ancient samurai helmet. He knew there was a special name for it, but he forgot what it was. Time colored the iron a dark brown, but did little to diminish the silver etchings of ivy and winter roses all around it. It was surprisingly light. He read the folded up note that came with it:

Your mother left this in my possession before she died.

She would want it to be returned to you.

Use it well.

A Very Merry Christmas To You

There was no signature. Hiro playfully placed the helmet on over his beanie.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked Peter.

Peter looked like he saw a ghost – and not the ones that roamed the castle.

"Hiro? W-where'd you go?"

"I'm right here, I – WOAH!"

Hiro looked down and saw right through his hand down to the floor.

"I'm see-through!" he cried.

"I can't see you at all!" Peter replied.

Hiro scrambled to his feet again, sending bits of wrapping paper flying away. He ran over to the mirror. Sure enough, his reflection was completely absent. He took off the helmet, and his body returned to normal.

"The helmet…it turned me invisible!"

"Wow!" gasped Peter. "Who sent you that?"

"It didn't say," Hiro said. "Only 'use it well'…"

He felt very strange. Who did send the helmet? Had it really once belonged to his mother?

Before he could say or think anything else, the dormitory door burst open and Emira and Edric Blight bounded in. Hiro stuffed the helmet quickly out of sight. He didn't feel like sharing it with anyone else yet.

"Merry Christmas!"

"Hey, look, Hiro got on the nice list!"

"Too bad for us, looks like we were judged naughty again."

Edric and Emira each held up a necklace with a purple quartz pendant. They casually tossed them both into the fireplace.

"Mom sends us the same lousy gift every year. She thinks she can control us at school and home? As if!"

Before Hiro could ask what that meant, a tiny ringing came from Emira's pocket.

"Ooh, looks like we've got company!"

She ran to the portrait door, opened it, and pulled Hunter into the common room. He was wearing a similar quartz necklace.

"Um, hey guys, how'd you know I'd be coming?" he said shyly.

"Come on, Hunter, it's Christmas at the Magic Kingdom! A day for family! Just one thing, though – it's casual dress only!"

"And no outsiders allowed!" Edric said with a wicked grin as he approached.

"But I –" Hunter said thickly as Edric yanked the necklace off him and threw it into the fire.

"We're thrilled you could join us," Edric continued. "You guys aren't leaving our side until you've had the best Christmas ever!"

Hiro had never in his life had such a Christmas dinner: mince pies, roast turkeys, suckling pig, mountains of roast potatoes, string beans, cranberry sauce, pot roast with pistachio gravy – and stacks of things called crackers every few feet along the table. Edric and Emira explained they were a Christmas tradition from England that Merlin brought over from the last time he visited there; open one and it would release some surprises. Since these were enchanted, however, he was told to expect more than just a few cheap toys. Hiro pulled one with Emira and it didn't just bang, it went off with a blast like a cannon and engulfed them all in a cloud of purple smoke, while from the inside exploded a rear admiral's hat and a horde of live miniature snowmen. Up at the High Table, Merlin had swapped his pointed wizard's hat for a propeller cap, and was chuckling merrily at a joke Ichabod told him.

Dessert followed the turkey; red velvet cake, chocolate cake with crumbled candy cane pieces on top, macarons, panettone, fruitcake (which nobody touched), plum pudding, fudge, trifle, peppermint bark and peanut brittle, a yule log almost as long as the high table, and a working miniature carousel made entirely out of gingerbread. Hunter nearly broke his teeth on a silver coin hidden inside his bite of pudding. Hiro watched Ralph get redder and redder in the face with every cup of eggnog he consumed, finally kissing Eda on the cheek, who, to Hiro's amazement, laughed so hard she fell out of her chair.

When Hiro finally left the table, he was laden down with stacks of surprises from the crackers, including a pack of luminous mouse-shaped balloons, a Grow-Your-Own-Beanstalk kit, and his own Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons set. The snowmen had run off, leaving little wet footprints in every direction, and Hiro had a nasty feeling they'd be giving O'Dell and the brooms a hard time until spring.

Hiro, Peter, and the Blights spent a happy afternoon having a furious snowball fight on the grounds. The twins were able to build a working fort in a matter of seconds via illusion magic, but they didn't count on Peter and Hiro bombarding them from above with help from Baymax. Then, cold, wet and gasping for breath, they returned to the common room fireplace for a few rounds of Maelstrom. Though Hunter came the closest to winning, Hiro, Edric and Emira all lost spectacularly to Peter. Hiro suspected maybe he wouldn't have sunk himself so badly this time if the twins didn't try to "help" him so much.

Soon, everyone was too tired to do much of anything except watch the fire roar and help themselves to some leftovers from dinner. It had been Hiro's best Christmas day ever. Yet something had been nagging at the back of his mind all day. It wasn't until long after Hunter returned to the Felinus common room and he and Peter started to lope off to bed that Hiro really thought about it.

"Hey, what are you two doing?" he said, noticing Edric and Emira hanging around the portrait door.

"Oh, definitely not getting ready to sneak out and see how the Wailing Star affects stuff around the castle," said Edric with a wink.

"The what?"

"The Wailing Star. It's a meteor shower that happens once a season, and this time it's supposed to happen real close to the Magic Kingdom," explained Emira. "It leaves a ton of wild unpredictable magic in the air when it happens. We're dying to see what we can do with it. Wanna join us?"

Hiro barely stopped himself from saying yes outright. He was eager to see the Wailing Star, but things had been going so well with Questing and escaping punishment for the troll that he was hesitant to risk everything for that.

Ah, but there was a way he could go without getting into trouble: the invisibility helmet – his mother's helmet.

Use it well, the note said...

"…Nah, you guys go ahead. Maybe I'll catch up with you later."

"Whatever you say."

Edric and Emira quietly pushed the door open and slipped out. Hiro tiptoed upstairs. Peter was already snoring in his bed. Something held him back from waking him and telling Edric and Emira about the helmet. He felt that this time – the first time – he wanted to use it alone.

He pulled out the helmet from his trunk. His mother's…this had been his mother's. The silver etchings gleamed in the moonlight. Reverently, he put it on his head. Looking down at his legs he only saw the bare outlines of his feet, and moonbeams and shadows. It was a funny feeling.

Use it well.

Suddenly, Hiro felt wide-awake. The entire Magic Kingdom was open to him in his helmet. Excitement flooded through him as he stood there in the dark and silence. He really could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and O'Dell would never know.

He crept out of the dormitory, down the stairs, across the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole.

"Who's there?" squeaked Hyacinth. Hiro said nothing. He walked quickly down the corridor.

Where should he go? He stopped, his heart racing, and thought. And then it came to him. The Forbidden Stacks in the library. He'd be able to read as long as he liked, as long as it took to find out who Edmund was. He set off, straightening the helmet as he walked.

He stopped at a row of windows and watched in awe as streaks of stars lit up the purple night sky. Against the snowy landscape it was a sight to behold.

Then, very faintly, he could hear the sound of crying coming from one very large star passing overhead. The Wailing Star really was wailing.

"Huh. Weird," Hiro muttered.

The library was dark and eerily silent – and the books all glowed green. Hiro wondered if this was an effect of the Wailing Star. Their light was just bright enough that he didn't need to light a lamp, but the effect still made his skin crawl.

The Forbidden Stacks was right at the back of the library. He jimmied his library card through the crack between the two heavy doors until the lock gave way and they parted. Stepping carefully over the threshold, he read the titles as he strode down the rows.

They didn't tell him much. Their peeling faded gold letters spelled words in languages and symbols Hiro couldn't understand. Some had no title at all. The hairs on the back of Hiro's neck prickled. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not, but he thought the books kept rearranging themselves and flying off the shelves when he wasn't looking. And he was almost certain the busts on the shelves were watching him as he walked by…

Hiro knew he had to start somewhere. He looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting-looking book. An ancient volume with a colorful beaded spine caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was tightly wedged between two heavier books. Two blue-pink gems were embedded in the leather, each one in the spaces of the number 8 drawn on the cover – or was it an infinity symbol? He opened the book to a page full of drawings of broken bones and a black hand emerging from a circle.

At once, the pages glowed green, and the black hand shot up out of the page and grabbed blindly at Hiro. The book had come to life! Hiro screamed as the fingers turned into long, slimy tentacles and he shut the book. The hand vanished and the book slipped from his grasp. It landed on the floor with a thud that the silence magnified into a crash. He stumbled backward and knocked over a shelf into the wall. All the books fell off and burst open as they hit the ground. Birds, beasts, monsters, and dangerous-looking plants emerged from their volumes and began running amok.

Panicking, Hiro saw the light of a lantern coming down the corridor outside. He ran for it. He passed O'Dell in the doorway; O'Dell's pale wild eyes looked straight through him, and Hiro slipped under his outstretched arm and streaked off up the corridor, the sounds of the zoo the Forbidden Stacks had turned into still ringing in his ears.

He came to a sudden halt in front of a tall suit of armor. He had been so busy getting away from the library that he hadn't paid attention to where he was going. Perhaps because it was dark, he didn't recognize where he was at all. He knew there was a suit of armor near the kitchens, but was at least five floors away from here.

"You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody's been in the Forbidden Stacks in the library."

Hiro felt the blood drain out of his face. Wherever he was, O'Dell must have known a shortcut, because his voice was getting nearer, and to his horror, it was Lilith who replied.

"The Restricted Section? I should have known this would happen tonight. They can't be far from there, we'll catch them."

Hiro stood rooted to the spot as O'Dell and Lilith turned the corner. They couldn't see him, of course, but it was a narrow corridor. If they came much nearer they'd knock right into him – and the helmet didn't stop him from being solid.

He backed away as quietly as he could. A door he had never seen before stood ajar to his left. It was his only hope. He squeezed through it, holding his breath, trying not to move it, and to his relief he managed to get inside the room while avoiding their notice. They walked straight past, and Hiro leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, listening to their footsteps dying away. That had been close, too close. It was a few seconds before he paused to look around the room he had hidden in.

It was pitch black. Hiro did a quick light spell and saw nearly all the walls were draped with heavy curtains. At the far end of the room a magnificent mirror hung on the wall. Stone depictions of the Zodiac encircled its ornate gold frame, which was in the shape of two intertwining snakes and studded with rubies and pearls. Hiro wondered what it was doing here, and why anyone would want to hide it away. His panic fading now that there was no sign of O'Dell or Lilith, Hiro approached the mirror.

As he touched the glass, a wall of flames shot up behind it. Hiro jumped back and clapped his hands to his mouth to stop him screaming. The flames subsided, and a green mask-like face appeared from out of the smoke.

"What wouldst thou know, young Hiro?" it intoned as its empty eyes bore into him.

Hiro's heart was pounding far more furiously than when the books sprung to life – whatever this thing was could still see him even though he was invisible.

"Who…what are you?" Hiro whispered.

"I am the Slave of the Magic Mirror

I come through wind and space

Your approach and desires have summoned me here

So that you may see my face.

I speak only truths, I give only answers,

I tell you no riddles or lies.

Now ask what you wish to know from me

So that you may claim your heart's prize."

"Wait, so I can ask you anything at all, and you have to answer truthfully?"

"Yes, young Hiro.

The truth is what I show."

"So if I ask you what my Aunt Cass is doing right now, you'll know it?"

"Yes, though she is currently sleeping.

A day of joy was marred by her weeping."

Hiro felt a twinge of guilt once more. But then a thought occurred.

"Can you…tell me anything about people from the past?"

"Yes, the past is an open book.

I can tell you and even give you a look."

Hiro steadied himself and inhaled.

"…I want to know about my parents. What were they like?"

From there, the Mirror told Hiro everything he asked for and more about his mother and father from their school days, and, from time to time, showed images of them growing up into adulthood. Hiro stood there, spellbound, as he tried to take in everything.

Tomeo, his father, had a knack for technology at a young age, much like Hiro. He was soft-spoken and had trouble making eye contact, which gave some the impression that he was a snob. To the few people who knew him best, however, he was a warm and sensitive boy who was endlessly curious about the magical world and had some brilliant ideas about combining magic and technology, even if not all of them worked. He was excellent in Alchemy, naturally, though he also had a gift for Charms.

His mother, Maemi, was a spirited young woman with a strong sense of justice. She had zero tolerance for bullies and was quick to defend anyone who was being picked on, helped by the fact that she was a Warrior on the Mus Questing team. Her friendship with Tomeo began when one of his class projects was stolen and she helped get it back. She went on to teach him as much martial arts as he knew so he could have an easier time defending himself, and he in turn helped her boost her grades in Modern Magical Technology as well as spark a similar interest in creating "magitech" as he called it. Her strengths lay in Transformation magic. Together they formed their own ragtag group of friends whose talent, camaraderie and penchant for chaos were both the pride and bane of the teachers' existence.

As Hiro listened, he began to feel like he really knew his family for the first time in his life. The question of how they had perished under Maleficent played on his lips, but he couldn't bring himself to ask it. Hiro wanted to reach through the glass and pull them both out. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, and half terrible sadness.

How long he stood in that room, he didn't know. It wasn't until he heard a distant noise from somewhere outside that he was brought back to his senses. He couldn't stay here; he had to find his way back to bed. He tore his eyes away from the Mirror, whispered, "I'll come back," and hurried from the room.

"You could have woken me up," said Peter, crossly.

"You can come tonight. I'm going back to learn everything about my mom and dad. We can ask the Mirror about your real parents too."

"No thanks," said Peter. "I don't care about them."

"Really? There's nothing you want to know about who they were or what they were like?"

"Oh, I knew what they were like, all right," Peter said. But he refused to elaborate. "Shame you couldn't find anything about Edmund. Have some bacon or something, why aren't you eating anything?"

Hiro couldn't eat. He had seen his parents and would be seeing them again tonight. He had almost forgotten about Edmund. It didn't seem very important anymore. Who cared what the dinosaur was guarding? What did it matter if Lilith stole it, really?

"Are you all right, Hiro?" said Peter. "You don't look so good."

Hiro was terrified that he might not be able to find the Mirror room again. He learned that if Peter held on to him while he put on the helmet, he became as invisible as he was until he took it off. They had to walk much more carefully the next night now that there were two of them. They tried retracing Hiro's route from the library, wandering around the dark passageways for nearly an hour.

"I'm freezing," said Peter. "Let's forget it and go back."

"No!" Hiro hissed. "I know it's here somewhere."

They passed the ghost of a Roman emperor gliding in the opposite direction, but saw no one else. Just as Peter started moaning that his feet were frostbitten, Hiro spotted the suit of armor.

"It's here – yes!"

They pushed the door open. Harry threw off the helmet and ran to the Mirror. Once again the spirit within appeared and asked what he wished to know.

"See, I told you we'd find it!" Hiro grinned. He pushed Peter up to the Mirror.

"Ask it anything! Go on!"

Peter stood silently for a moment in thought.

"Um, Magic Mirror, how are things back at…at where I used to live?"

"The window is closed,

The bars are still there,

The little boy sleeps,

Dreaming dreams without care."

Peter looked as though someone had punched him in the gut. He turned away, his fists clenching. Maybe it was the low lighting in the room, but Hiro thought he was about to cry.

"I don't like this mirror. I'm going back to the tower."

"Wait, don't go!" said Hiro, stepping in his path. "Not everything it says is bad. Lemme show what it does when I ask about my parents."

"I don't want to know about your parents! I want to leave!"

"Don't push me!"

A sudden noise outside in the corridor put an end to their fight. They hadn't realized how loudly they'd been shouting.

"Quick!"

Peter grabbed Hiro's arm and he jammed the helmet back on as Bony's wet black nose sniffed its way through the door. Hiro and Peter stood as still as could be, both thinking the same thing – did the helmet work on dogs? After what seemed like an eternity, he turned and left.

"I bet he's coming back with O'Dell. Come on."

And Peter dragged Hiro out of the room.

The snow still hadn't melted the next morning. Hiro gazed into the Great Hall fireplace, unaware of Peter sitting down beside him.

"Want to play Maelstrom, Hiro?"

"No."

"How about we go visit Ralph?"

"No…you go…"

"You're thinking about that mirror again, aren't you, Hiro? You can't go back tonight."

"Why not?"

"Something about it's not right. And you nearly got in trouble again with O'Dell and Bony and Lilith –"

"So what? You're always okay with getting in trouble if it means you get to show up Kay."

"I'm serious this time! What if they walk right into you? Or find you sitting there when you're not supposed to?"

Peter tried to turn Hiro to face him, but Hiro pushed him away angrily.

"You sound like Wendy. You're just mad because you didn't like what the Mirror told you."

Peter's face turned red.

"All right, go on, go back to that stupid mirror again! But I'm not coming with you, and I'm not helping you if you get caught."

But Hiro had only one thought in his head, to get back in front of the Magic Mirror, and Peter wasn't going to stop him.

The third night he found his way more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.

And there was the face of the Magic Mirror, sharing all sorts of little details and stories that made his mother and father feel more real than they ever were before. Hiro sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying there all night, asking every question he could think of. Nothing at all…

"Heh heh heh…Back again, Hiro?"

Hiro felt as if his insides had turned to ice. He looked behind him. A pair of spectacles hung in the air as patches of tiny stars formed into Merlin. Hiro was relieved to see the old wizard was smiling.

"So," Merlin said, kneeling down beside Hiro, "I see you like so many others before you have discovered the wonders of the Magic Mirror."

"Yeah. It's like a search engine that talks back – and tells you anything you can't find on the internet."

"I never thought about it that way, but yes, I suppose it is," said Merlin, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

"Wait, how did you know I was here before?" Hiro asked fearfully.

"During the Wailing Star shower I was overcome with the urge to make sure there wasn't too much mischief occurring around the castle," Merlin replied, his eyes twinkling knowingly. "I may have left a few doors open during my investigation. As I returned to close this particular one, I found the room occupied, though I thought it would be rude to interrupt at the time."

Hiro couldn't think of a way to respond.

"This Mirror gives us knowledge and truth about all things – whether we want to hear it or not. Tell me, Hiro, you have asked the Mirror for information previously unknown to you about your parents and the kind of people they were – what else will you do with it?"

Hiro sat and pondered this. The only thing he had on his mind at first was getting to learn more about his parents. There was an infinite resource of information at his fingertips with nothing hidden from him. He thought of Aladar, a creature brought back after thousands of years. Maybe…

"What if…there was a way to bring them back? Maybe with the Mirror and the right amount of research and spells –" But Merlin cut him off.

"Hiro, there's an old saying about the powers we're gifted – all magic comes with a price. There are limits to what we can and cannot do, and I'm afraid reviving the dead is beyond them."

"But it's not impossible, is it? Wendy's read us stories where the good guys died but came back in the end. How come they get to live and not my mom and dad?" Hiro's voice cracked, and he found himself furiously wiping his eye. "It's…it's not fair…"

Merlin gave him a sympathetic look and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're right, lad. It isn't fair that you should grow up without your mother and father," he said.

"I was happy learning about them, but knowing they're gone makes it hurt more." Hiro looked back up at Merlin. "If the Magic Mirror really does know everything, couldn't you have used it to save them? Couldn't you have asked it what Maleficent's next move was and make sure she didn't kill them?"

Before Merlin could answer, the Mirror spoke up:

"Alas, my vision does not extend forward through time.

But even if I could, would it truly be sublime?"

Hiro's hopes plunged into his stomach like a stone. When he looked at Merlin again, he was surprised to see he wasn't angry with him after his accusations. The old wizard looked down on him kindly.

"It's a wonderful thing, pursuing the truth, especially regarding the ones we loved and knew so little. But to obsess over what could have been, to try to change what is long out of our hands does us more harm than good, lad. People have wasted their lives chasing the ephemeral because of what they could not accept, even gone mad. Why, the Mirror's previous owner used its powers for her own vainglory, and it drove her to commit terrible crimes of jealousy and rage over what she could not control. That is why the Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Hiro, and I must ask you not to go looking for it again. If you do ever run across it, you will now be prepared. It doesn't do to dwell on the past and forget to live in the present, remember that. Now, why don't you put that admirable kabuto back on and return to bed?"

"Huh, so that's what it's called…."

Hiro stood up.

"Sir…Professor? Can I ask you something?"

"Obviously, you've just done so," Merlin smiled. "You may ask me one more thing, however."

"What would you ask the Mirror if you could?"

"I? I'd ask it the best way to go about building my own miniature train I can ride in my backyard."

Hiro stared.

"So few people appreciate the power of a locomotive, the beauty of a steam engine, and the fun and thrill that comes with riding along," sighed Merlin. "Another Christmas has come and gone, and I haven't even gotten a model train set. People will insist on giving me books and new robes because it seems I'm too mature to enjoy such things."

It was only when he was back in bed that it struck Hiro that Merlin might not have been quite truthful. But then, he thought as he turned over in his blankets, it had been a personal question.

This is one of the hardest chapters to complete because of the scene between Merlin and Hiro. It took quite a few rewrites to hit that bittersweet note.

BTW, am I the only one who always thought the plot of The Santa Clause was messed up?

Next Chapter: King Frederic and King Edmund