Cira's stomach dropped as the monitors turned black. "K'Tah, you didn't!" She hurled a series of curses at the monitor, as if that would bring him back. This was not supposed to happen. She'd been so certain that the threat of never coming home would stop him; and yet she should have known. This was K'Tah, after all. It wasn't like she hadn't noticed him and Cretney making googly-eyes at one another the whole time. She'd just wanted so badly for her first big assignment as head of the agency to work as planned, she'd ignored all the warning signs. And maybe—though she refused to admit it—she still felt a drop of loyalty toward her former mentor, despite how much she resented him.

So, what now? She couldn't let him die in that house fire and she had to reach him before he made any other reckless decisions. The black screen taunted her, the shrill silence flooded the office. Don't panic. Think.

Should she alert the rest of the agency? No, their elucidators were just as useless without access to K'tah's. Besides, the older generation had doubted her competency from the start and the younger agents looked to her as a role model. What would they say if they learned how badly she'd screwed up?

Think, think, think. Where would K'tah go if the present wasn't an option? The twenty-first century? She doubted he was that stupid, but she had to try.

"Elucidator, I need to speak with Hadley Correro."

HADLEY CORRERO IS UNREACHABLE, flashed across the monitor.

"What, why?"

HE IS CURRENTLY WITH UNAPPROVED TIME NATIVES. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK TO HIS EMERGENCY CONTACT?

Ugh, why now? It was such terrible timing. Cira gritted her teeth and said, "Yes, fine. I'll talk to Miss DuPr—I mean Mrs. Correro."

Cira waited for her elucidator to connect. Hurry up, this is an emerge—

"Hello? Angela Correro speaking." The monitor showed DuPre standing in a small kitchen. She spoke loudly into Correro's elucidator, as if worried it wouldn't pick up her voice if she spoke too quietly.

"It's not an iphone, Mrs. Correro. I can hear you just fine," Cira said.

DuPre's mouth flattened into a tight smile. "Always a pleasure, Cira."

"Okay, I deserved that," Cira admitted.

"It's fine," said DuPre. "Is everything okay? Hadley's with the babies at the doctor, but he should be back in an hour."

An hour! No, Cira needed help now. "There's a problem with K'Tah."

DuPre froze. "JB?"

"Yes, I need you to call me immediately if he shows up at your door—or anywhere in the twenty-first century."

"Why would he come here? Isn't time travel illegal now?" She stopped staring at the elucidator, rushed to her kitchen window, and peered out anxiously.

"It is, but I sent him on a last mission to fix some remaining loose ends—"

"Loose ends?" DuPre's forehead creased and she clutched the elucidator tighter. "I thought it was all over. Rathbone's gone, the kids are back home. Do I need to call their parents and pick up Maria and Leo from school? Are Greg and Henry safe with Hadley?"

"They're all fine," said Cira. "For now, at least. The loose ends have nothing to do with them."

"But JB's involved in fixing it?"

"He was supposed to be."

"What does that mean?" DuPre rifled through a kitchen drawer and snatched a pair of keys from inside.

"Don't go anywhere," said Cira just as DuPre made a dash for the hallway. "Stay home and tell Correro everything when he gets back."

"Tell him what? I don't even know what's going on!"

Cira took a deep breath and tried to be patient, but when she heard herself speak, she feared it sounded more condescending than anything. "Just sit down and listen to me."

"I don't need to sit down," said DuPre. "Just tell me."

...

"Where are you taking me?" Sam laughed, her eyes still closed, as they floated backwards through time. JB could hardly contain his excitement. He wasn't sure how he'd come up with such a brilliant idea, but Sam was going to lose it when he told her.

"Pick a number between one and twelve," he said.

"Thirteen!"

"Sam…"

She cackled at her own joke. "Okay, fine. Um…six?"

"Six, you got it."

"You'd better not be taking me somewhere fancy. I look like crap."

"So do I," he said. "Don't worry, I'll land us in a spot where we can change." Personally, he thought her soot-patched cheeks and wild curls only revealed another layer to Sam's loveliness, but he knew she'd want to freshen up before going anywhere.

A rush of frigid air greeted them upon arrival in a little brown tent. JB had prepared for an icy landing, but the slippery ground still caught him off guard. He skidded backwards and crashed on the ice below. Sam landed on top of him with a shriek.

"Are you trying to get us killed?" she panted. "What is this?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd slip."

"On ice?" she said, gaping at the ground.

"Fair point," he said, embarrassed. This was not going according to plan. He normally had way better judgment than this. Had he hit his head harder than he'd thought? "Maybe I've got a concussion from that fall in the library."

Sam's angry expression melted into worry. She held his face with both hands and said, "Oh no, does it still hurt? Another fall can't be good for you."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. Are you okay?"

"Hold still, let me see your pupils." She scooted closer and searched his eyes. "How do you feel?"

Right now, with her hands on his face, gazing at him with deep concern? He felt pretty darn good. "I'm okay, Sam. I promise. It's just cold out here."

"Is it?" she said, and laughed awkwardly. "I hadn't noticed."

Truth be told, the air seemed to have heated up significantly since they'd fallen over. He cleared his throat and scooted to a sitting position. "Well, it had better be cold or we're in the wrong place."

Her face lit up. "Right, the surprise! Where are we?"

"Well, right now we're inside a tent. Once we take turns changing and step outside, you'll find that it's December twenty-fourth, 1683. Welcome to the London Frost Fair, the first of twelve historical Christmas Eves we'll be visiting."

...

"Wow," said Jordan with a smirk. "Ghosting his boss and using emergency work supplies to impress a girl? Is this the same JB that wanted to send Jonah back to the past originally? Guess we were a bad influence on him."

Katherine crossed her arms and grimaced. "How many times do I have to tell you, it's sexist to call a woman eighteen or older a 'girl'?"

Jordan rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant. My point is JB has become kind of a badass thanks to us."

"Could you stop congratulating yourselves and shut up, please?" Kevin snapped. Something felt very wrong about what he'd just watched and he couldn't concentrate with his siblings chatting. "Am I the only one who's worried JB made a big mistake?"

"What are you talking about?" said Jonah. "We're all still alive and clearly JB made it to old age since he's literally the one who brought us here."

"And don't you think he would have brought Sam here if everything turned out all fine and dandy? This whole thing is about her, after all," Kevin pointed out. "Don't you remember, he said something about failing to save someone?"

Katherine's face fell. "You're saying you don't think Sam made it back to the twenty-first century?"

Kevin swallowed. "I'm saying I don't think she made it, period. I have a really bad feeling, okay?"

The other three fell silent and stared at him. Nobody said a thing as the scene played on.

With a sense of dread, Kevin watched JB and Sam stumble out of the tent in what he presumed was appropriate attire for 1683. Sam wore a burgundy dress made of heavy, curtain-like fabric that puffed out in the back. Over this was a gold coat with giant sleeves that looked like potatoes, trimmed with fur and ribbons. She'd complained about the state of her hair after the fire, but maybe large bushy curls were in style in 1683, because it looked the same to him. Only now, she'd added a strange vertical headpiece made of lace under a comically large scarf or bonnet. JB's clothes were just as hideous. He had on what looked like a pirate coat, only significantly less cool. He couldn't imagine seeing Jack Sparrow in those knit tights and pumpkin-sized pants. The long curly wig, giant muff, and lacey tie that looked just like Sam's hat only made it gaudier. He must really like her if he's willing to wear that, he thought.

The fair did look fun, though. Kids skated and slid every which way, totally unsupervised. The ice bustled with activity as far as the eye could see. Horse-drawn carriages brought in happy spectators, actors and puppeteers performed plays, people played sports like soccer and bowling, dogs chased sticks and scavenged for discarded food, and even tropical animals like monkeys and parrots could be seen in little menageries at various spots. Shops in tents sold everything from hot cocoa and meat to clothing and cards. Every few minutes, Sam exclaimed, "No, actually this is the best part!" JB just grinned, clearly pleased with himself for thinking to bring her here. The only downside, it seemed, was the brownish snow that littered the banks of the river. Sam didn't complain, but she kept her eyes on the sky as if waiting for it to snow again.

To Kevin's relief, the day went by with nothing sinister, and after a night at a local inn, they were off to another Christmas Eve.

This time, it was 1912 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. They'd ditched their potato-pirate outfits from 1683 and now wore much nicer dinner clothes in one of the hotel's many opulent restaurants. JB wore an old-fashioned tux, and though Kevin could have done without her excess of sequins, he didn't mind Sam's drapey pink dress with its sheer sleeves and big red flower at the waist. They sat down at a table and talked while servers brought several courses of fancy food that reminded him of the first class dinner in Titanic. Sam's back was to the window and she asked again and again if JB could see any snowflakes outside, but none appeared.

Next, they visited Paris in 1878. They perched on velvet seats in a private booth of the Garnier opera house, but their focus was not on the stage. Sam claimed the real reason people went to the opera in the 1800s was to observe their peers. That was probably why she'd worn a frothy mint dress with long white gloves and a huge train. JB, on the other hand, looked pretty much the same as he'd looked in 1912, as far as Kevin could tell.

"The opera was just an excuse to look at other fancy people in the audience," Sam said, and Kevin wondered if that's why operas were always so boring.

She peered through a pair of dainty binoculars and nudged JB. "Do you think I'll still have a full experience if I watch the performers a little bit or should I be like everyone else and watch the audience the whole time?"

"I liked it better when you were asking me about snow every ten seconds," JB teased.

Sam faced him, still wearing the binoculars and said, "If you keep making that face, all the important people will think we're weirdos."

"Oh, sure, I'm the weirdo for actually watching the show."

Sam playfully made a hand gesture at him that Kevin knew was not appropriate even in the twenty-first century, let alone an opera house in the 1870s. JB's face morphed from confused to horrified to hysterical as he almost fell backwards laughing. Sam stared at her own hand for a second, as if she couldn't believe what she'd done, but soon she, too, doubled over. Well-dressed folks in other booths gaped at them with scandalized expressions, which only made Sam and JB laugh harder.

As he watched them travel to various Christmas Eve events and festivals from 1890s Alsace, to 1750s Vienna, to 1830s Edinburgh, and several others without any roadblocks or signs of the hooded man, Kevin let himself relax. Maybe his gut feeling was wrong.

On the twelfth day, JB and Sam were back in London, this time in 1865. They'd chosen the year at random, Sam having requested a year with guaranteed snow. JB explained that with time still in flux, weather was unpredictable and the historical record could not entirely be relied upon, even if everything else lined up with original history. 1865, however, presented a high likelihood of snow, so that was the year they'd chosen.

"Eleven days and still no fresh snow…" Sam murmured as she browsed the shelves of a small bookshop. "Not that I'm complaining," she added instantly, giving JB a grateful smile. "This is the most fun I've had in my entire life."

"I just hope I haven't set the bar too high for all holidays. I have nothing planned for New Year's Eve," said JB.

"Eh, after Christmas, I'd rather just hibernate anyway," Sam murmured. "No more carols, no more lights, no more decorations…" She ran her hand along the spines of several books and sighed wistfully. "See, this is why I think Christmas Eve is better than Christmas Day."

"You're not tired of Christmas Eve, even after eleven in a row?" asked JB.

"Never!" said Sam. "I—"

But someone had cut her off. A gray-haired woman who looked about fifty had called to them from the other side of the bookstore, and the look in her pale eyes was one of recognition.

Just then, Katherine stood up and pointed at the screen. "Is that…Mrs. Daley?"