Nicholas Kringle's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Nicholas left the empty house and followed the pull into town. The magic in his hands was small now, a coal where there had once been fire. Snow packed the streets. The cold bit at the light with every step. A thread of glow peeled off and died in the air. Nicholas stopped at the edge of an open square. The pull led straight across it. But he could feel the truth in his bones. If he crossed that wide, freezing space, the last of his magic would drain before he reached the other side. He stood at the square's edge and searched for another way. There was none. The pull would not bend. He looked across the snow and saw a boy sitting alone on a bench. The boy held a folded red scarf in both hands. He unfolded it, smoothed it flat, then folded it again the exact same way. His lips moved as if counting. This was Noel Winters, a boy from a place where no one knew the word "gift." A stranger had once handed him that scarf for nothing, then vanished. Noel had kept it ever since, trying to understand why. Nicholas felt the pull lock onto the boy. His heir was there, across the killing cold. He could not carry the magic that far. So he changed the plan. He would not carry it. He would send it. Nicholas knelt in the snow. He gathered what light remained and pressed his own essence into it, the way he had done at the beanstalk. His form thinned. His hands went pale as glass. He poured himself into the coal until it flared bright, then he cast it across the square like a thrown ember. The light streaked over the snow. The cold tore at it. Threads burned away. Nicholas watched it shrink and nearly fail above the center of the square. Then it dropped into Noel's open hands. The boy did not flinch. He looked at the glow sitting in his palms beside the scarf. He turned it over once, studying it. "This is warm," Noel said. "No one gave me a reason." He paused. "Like the scarf." "It's yours," Nicholas called. His voice was thin now, almost gone. "A gift. No reason needed." Noel stood. He held the light against his chest and it did not shrink. It steadied there, fed by something in the boy that Nicholas could not name. The magic had crossed the square. It had found a living hand. It was safe from the cold, for now. But Nicholas looked down at himself and saw the cost. He had spent nearly all he had to throw the light so far. His legs had faded to nothing. He could not cross the square now. He could not reach the boy to finish the passing, to teach him what the magic was. The heir held the magic. And Nicholas could no longer reach him.