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Christmastime brought its own special kind of chaos, even in the little town of Labyrinthia.
Eve Belduke knew this well. But that did not explain why at least half of the knights were chasing two cloaked, screaming figures through the town square.
It was no good. The knights couldn't close the distance between themselves and their prey, not with the snow getting caught in the gaps of their already-heavy armor. Eve slipped through the crowds into a connecting alley, then ran along a parallel street. She came out again right outside the bakery and tripped one of the cloaked figures as they dashed past.
"Ahhhhh!" the figure cried out. "The Great Thief of Labyrinthia, brought down by the oldest of tricks!"
Eve rolled her eyes. I should have known. "Kay Faraday. What are you doing?"
The other figure stopped running and doubled back. "You tell us what's going on, Eve!" she huffed. A winter breeze blew back her hood, revealing Ema Skye. "We were just on our way to the bakery when the guards started yelling at us to halt! Like we were criminals or something!"
"Well, you do look suspicious with those hoods," Eve pointed out.
"It's cold out! Why wouldn't we wear hoods?"
Eve shook her head. "So, this was all just a case of mistaken identity? Why am I not sur…" Her eyes fell on a vial of golden dust in Ema's hand. She'd seen that vial before. And it wasn't supposed to be out in the streets of Labyrinthia. "Ema. Is that one of my father's alchemy ingredients?"
Ema quickly put the vial in her pocket. "I'm one of his apprentices. He said I could help myself whenever I wanted to experiment on something."
"Mm-hmm." Eve folded her arms over her chest. "Except that one looks like it could be the Sands of Time. The same Sands of Time that are kept locked in my father's private collection and cannot be removed except under special circumstances."
"Eve…"
Now it was all starting to fall into place. "So, you broke into my father's private collection. Jean must have seen that the Sands of Time were missing and alerted the knights. And they tracked the theft to the two of you."
"Is that why they were chasing us?" Kay frowned. "Nah, that can't be it. How would they have known that we had the Sands of Time?"
Eve responded by pointing to the ground, where two clear sets of footprints left a trail that likely went all the way back to her father's house. "If only it hadn't snowed last night."
With the evidence mounting, Ema pouted. "Okay, fine. We took your father's Sands of Time. And we didn't tell Jean about it. But I know that Sir Belduke would have given us permission if we'd asked him, because these are special circumstances. It's an emergency!"
"An emergency," Eve repeated. This ought to be good…
Kay flashed a cheeky grin. "Would you believe that we're trying to save Christmas?"
"I can believe that you think you're trying to save Christmas."
"We are!" insisted Kay. "We're doing this for Maya and Espella!" Eve raised her eyebrows. "Look, you know how Patty Eclaire's bakery is always chosen to make treats for Santa's big end-of-flight Christmas party at the North Pole?"
Eve knew that very well. It was a point of pride in Labyrinthia every Christmas, since the year that Patty first received the coveted assignment.
"Well, Patty's been sick with the flu, and Maya and Espella have been running this bakery all by themselves. And Nick can't help because he's off helping the professor and Luke with some weird case a couple of towns over, and they won't be back until after New Year's," explained Kay. "Maya and Espella don't want to tell Santa's elves that they can't do it this year, but they don't have time to do all of that baking."
Ema held up the little vial. "So, we thought, why not give them more time?"
"Oh, I see. You're going to freeze it."
As a child, Eve had shown some interest in alchemy, the way that many children showed interest in their parents' professions. She had followed her father around his workshop, wanting only to impress him by doing the thing that he loved doing. It was fun watching him mix ingredients together and seeing what happened next. He would often pause before an experiment and invite her to guess what the result might be.
The years went by and Eve gradually drifted away from alchemy to pursue her own interests. But she still had a passing familiarity with the subject.
"Are you sure that's a good idea? My father kept the Sands of Time locked up for a reason. He always said that's a dangerous one to get wrong."
Ema flipped a pair of rose-tinted goggles over her face. "Not to worry, Eve! You're looking at the best and brightest of your father's apprentices!"
Jean Greyerl would probably have something to say about that. Still, Ema was smart, and from the sound of it, Espella and Maya were in dire need of help.
Eve shook her head. If she hadn't been so busy overseeing Christmas preparations around town with the knights under her command, she might have noticed the problem sooner. She'd just assumed that the bags under Espella's eyes came from the normal stress of having so many cookies to bake, and Espella would never have complained about what was really going on.
"All right. Why don't I help you get it set up? And if you need an extra hand once the spell is in place, I can help make cookies."
"Really? Thank you!" said Ema.
"YEAH!" Kay leapt at Eve and tackle-hugged her into a nearby snowman. "Whoops, sorry. But we haven't done this in so long and I've missed hanging out with you! You, me, Ema, Maya, and Espella, having a Christmas cookie bake-off! C'mon, let's go inside and tell Maya and Espella the good news!"
And she did so by flinging open the door of the bakery and shouting dramatically, "Never fear! The Hero of Labyrinthia and her sidekicks have arrived!"
Eve brushed off the "sidekick" comment. With Kay, sometimes it was better to just roll with whatever she was doing.
The bakery always smelled wonderful, and especially so at Christmastime. Cinnamon and gingerbread permeated the air, and wisps of flour and sugar replaced the snow flurries outside. Traces of dough stuck to the counter among mixing bowls, cutting boards, rolling pins, measuring cups, and cookie cutters.
Despite the evidence of baking, there were no bakers in sight. Eve heard the creak of footsteps on the second floor and decided to check it out. "You two wait down here. I'll be right back."
As she made her way up the stairs, she heard Patty sneeze. "Ohhhhh!" her voice cried out. "This is no time for me to be getting sick! Help me up, girls. I'm feeling much better today."
"Not a chance!" Maya's voice replied. "Sorry, ma'am, but we can't have you getting germs all over Santa's cookies on Christmas Eve."
"I suppose you're right." More sneezing and coughing followed. "I know you'll take care of it, girls. Thank you for all you've done for me."
"Of course!" Espella stood in the doorway of Patty's bedroom, her back facing Eve. "Please rest, Patty. We'll bring up some soup and extra Christmas cookies at dinnertime."
Eve shook her head. Espella would make that kind of promise - and break herself trying to keep it - when she had no time to bake extra cookies.
She leaned against the top of the railing and waited for Maya and Espella to back out of the sick room. "Poor Patty," murmured Espella, wringing her hands as Maya shut the door. "This is such terrible timing for her - oh! Eve!" A smile lit up her face. "What brings you here?"
"A 'great' thief and a 'great' alchemist," said Eve, nodding towards the ground floor.
Maya groaned. "Uh-oh. What'd they do? They said they were going out to solve all of our problems for us, but they wouldn't tell us how."
Eve relayed the whole story as they descended into the kitchen. Before she'd even finished telling it, Maya started jumping up and down like a child on Christmas morning. "Wait, a time spell? Like the kind that Santa uses on Christmas Eve to deliver presents? What a great idea!"
In the meantime, Kay had assisted Ema in clearing away some of the baking ingredients to set up a portable alchemist's workshop. Flour and sugar had been replaced by quartz stones and sprigs of thyme and rosemary. Mixing bowls and measuring cups had been repurposed for the experiment. Ema's goggles were strapped in place.
"Exactly. A time spell," she said, in response to Maya's questions. "If all goes well, this will freeze time in the area around the bakery. It'll basically create a pocket dimension while we put Santa's order together, and once everything's done, we can rejoin the rest of the world as though no time passed at all."
"You're a genius, Ema," said Maya.
"No, just an alchemist in training. But I'll get to genius someday!" After checking her list twice to ensure that all of the ingredients were present and accounted for, she clapped her hands together. "Okay, everybody! I need you all to stay in the house, but for safety reasons, you should probably go into another room."
"They can go into another room," said Eve, gesturing to Maya, Espella, and Kay. "I'm staying out here to assist you in case something goes wrong."
Ema was happy to have the help. Ema was happy with just about anything and everything when alchemy was involved. "I've never had such an enthusiastic apprentice," Eve's father would often observe. "She's going to surpass me some day. I can feel it."
More likely than not, that day was coming sooner than Eve would have wanted. There was something uncanny about watching one of her best friends imitating her father in little ways that she never did. How she rolled back her shoulders before pounding the quartz. The way she squinted through a magnifying glass. Most of all, the excited gleam whenever two ingredients reacted to one another.
"Ahhhh, alchemy! It's my life!"
Eve smiled. Her father often said the same thing.
Once everything was ready, they called the rest of their friends back into the kitchen. "Stand back, but don't leave," Ema instructed. "Just in case the pocket dimension doesn't span past the kitchen. You never know how an experiment will go. Everyone ready?"
"Oh, yes! Let's see if it works!" said Espella, leaning forward with an eager smile, as Maya cheered alongside her.
"Go for it, O Great Alchemist!" added Kay.
Encouraged by her friends' support, Ema took the mixing bowl, now filled with a beautiful golden powder, and tossed the concoction into the air. It hung in the atmosphere like frozen rain. Eve felt a familiar sense of anticipation that came from an experiment about to be completed. Then the powder dissipated into the rest of the house.
"Um…Ema?" Maya glanced around the bakery. "Did anything actually happen?"
In response, Ema went to the front door and held it wide open. "See for yourself."
Outside, all of Labyrinthia had completely frozen. Hundreds of snowflakes suspended in the air. Lettie Mailer had one foot off the ground, reaching for something in her bag that she would not find until Ema's spell wore off. Two knights faced off against each other, their swords trapped in mid-arc. Mary was literally locked in a struggle with a lamb trying to escape from her. Emeer Paunchenbag…would have been frozen anyway, as he'd fallen asleep nearby. Droplets of wine hung from a half-spilled goblet in his hand.
It was perfect. If Sir Belduke had seen it, he would have been proud of his apprentice.
"Way to go, Ema! You did it!" Maya whooped. She rolled up her sleeves. "Now: let's get those orders ready for Santa!"
With all the time in the world before Christmas, and five pairs of hands ready to bake, Eve and her friends relaxed as they prepared the mixing bowls and baking trays. Everyone selected something to bake from Santa's list and got to work.
"Five hundred gingerbread cookies?" Eve sputtered. "Two hundred pies? Fifty gingerbread houses…how did you ever expect to get this done on your own, Espella?"
Espella blushed. "We would have found a way."
Of course, she had conveniently neglected to specify how they would have found a way. "You should have come to me sooner," said Eve.
"Oh no! I could never have bothered you with all of this! We all know how busy you are this time of year."
Eve reached for some gingerbread dough, which had already been chilled the night before, and rolled it out. "I'm never too busy to help you. You should know that already."
"Thank you, Eve." Espella sprinkled some flour across her own surface and grabbed a chunk of dough for herself. They worked quietly together, while Maya and Ema sang Christmas carols and Kay deliberately changed up the lyrics.
"The Great Thief is coming to toooooooown…"
"Kay, no!"
"She sees where you are sleeping! She hides when you're awake! She knows if your loot is bad or good…"
"I thought you only stole the truth?" Eve called out.
"…So tell the truth for goodness' sake!"
None of them could hold back their giggles. It was nice to be spending time with them again. Eve couldn't remember the last time they had. But it came with the territory of being captain of the guard. She'd known what she was getting into when she signed up.
"Eve?"
She looked at Espella, who laid three cookies across her baking sheet. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine." Eve shrugged. "Like you said, it's always busy this time of year with the knights overseeing all of the Christmas festivities and making sure people don't get hurt…"
"You know what I mean, Eve."
She had her own cookies to add to the tray. "I'm fine. Really. I'll get by."
The Christmas carols petered out as the rest of their friends overheard the conversation; Kay stopped trying to change the lyrics. "Are you sure? Because I remember how awful my first Christmas…"
Eve brought the cookie cutter down hard on the dough. "I'm fine, everyone. Please. I just want to bake with all of you. Let's go back to singing about thieves stealing Christmas or however you want to sing it."
They exchanged looks with one another. "Okay," said Maya. "But we're here for you if you need us."
"Funny," Eve smirked. "I thought I was here for you."
"Whatever! Same difference!"
"Is it though…?"
They all laughed, breaking up the tension that had started to build in the kitchen, and went back to baking. Soon enough, the smell of warm cookies and pies joined the other delicious aromas already present, and the counter-tops were filled with cooling treats.
"Steady…steady…steady…"
Neither Ema nor Eve moved as Maya ran icing up and down the walls of the last gingerbread house. Espella and Kay added gumdrops and candy cane fencing to the ones that had already been completed.
"Steady…ha! Got it!"
Eve slowly moved her hand away. The walls stayed upright. They hadn't done so for the first house, or the tenth. But by the time they got to the fiftieth building, Eve and her friends had it down to a science. An entire cookie village spread out before them, populated by little ginger people. "What does Santa even need fifty for?" Eve wondered.
"They're centerpieces for each table at his party," explained Maya. She brushed off her flour-covered hands and took a step back.
Five hundred gingerbread cookies. Five hundred chocolate chip. Five hundred butter cookies, teacakes, snicker-doodles, sugar, and peanut butter blossoms. Santa required at least one for each elf. Two hundred pies. Three hundred tarts. Fifty gingerbread houses.
There was no telling how much time it had actually taken. But all the while, Lettie kept searching her bag, Mary struggled with her lamb, and all of Labyrinthia held its breath as the clock hands stayed frozen.
"We've done ourselves proud today, ladies!" Maya announced. "Thanks for all of your help, everyone! We couldn't have done it without you!"
They really couldn't have. Eve still couldn't believe they'd even tried. How Patty had managed in past years, she couldn't begin to imagine.
Ema tipped her goggles. "You mean, we couldn't have done it without the power of alchemy! Ready for me to unfreeze time?"
Nobody had any objections. Ema started gathering the necessary ingredients for one last recipe, and Eve helped with pounding the quartz stone and applying three drops of the Sands of Time. Once more, the golden powder was dispersed into the air. Once more, Ema opened the doors wide into the bustling streets of Labyrinthia.
Except that the streets weren't bustling.
The knights continued to wait for their swords to make contact. Emeer continued to sleep. His wine continued to spill. Nobody moved.
"It…it might just need some time to settle…?" Ema suggested.
"Time?" said Eve. "There isn't any time. This is supposed to bring time back!"
"I know that! I know that!" Ema rushed back into the kitchen and studied the recipe. "Quartz…right…only three drops…right…Stir twice clockwise, stir once counter-clockwise…ground the ingredients into a fine powder…release the dust…I did all of that! What am I missing?"
"We can't be stuck forever? Can we?" cried Espella.
"No! We're not! I can fix this. Just give me a second…"
There were no seconds. There were no minutes, or hours, or days. They had all the time in the world, and no time at all.
Outside the walls of Labyrinthia, the world continued to spin. Inside its walls, nothing changed.
Ema went over the recipe again and again, as if the solution was hiding itself somewhere in the words. She combed it for secret riddles and tested the paper for invisible ink, but came up with nothing.
"This can't be happening!" Maya wailed. "If we can't get out of this, Santa won't be able to reach Labyrinthia! He won't be able to pick up his treats for the party or deliver any presents!"
Kay shuddered. "And if he can't get desserts from Patty, he might start ordering from Gusto's Confections instead."
"We can't do that to Patty! We just can't!"
Eve sat at the foot of the stairs. Her hands pressed against her forehead. She'd known since childhood that her father considered the Sands of Time a dangerous ingredient. That was why he kept it locked away.
But why?
He'd told her why, several times. Why couldn't she remember? She'd paid attention, hadn't she? Why weren't her father's words coming back to her?
Espella sat down next to her and gently pulled one of her hands away from her face. "Eve, it's all right. We know you're not an alchemist like your father."
"But I should remember. I should remember everything he ever told me, and I don't."
Ema slumped over the countertop. "Espella's right. At least you're not one of his students. I should remember what I did wrong, and I don't."
"But you're not his daughter…!" Eve's voice cracked. Espella squeezed her hand.
The others exchanged another look, just as they'd done while baking. One by one, they made their way over to the staircase and crouched down on the floor. All of them regarded her with concern, Kay especially so. "Eve? Do you want to talk about this now?" She spread her arms out, gesturing towards the frozen people in the street. "Don't say you don't have time for it, 'cause we've got plenty of that."
If only she'd thought of the Sands of Time sooner. A means to preserve something - or someone - for an extended period of time, as long as you needed.
But then again, her father was an alchemist; the best alchemist in Labyrinthia and the neighboring villages. He never would have wanted to stay suspended in time forever, even if it could have saved his life.
"I miss him," she whispered. "It's been seven months, but it still feels like it was last week. I keep trying to stay focused on managing the knights. It helps, but it's not enough."
"Of course you miss him!" cried Ema. "Sir Belduke was a genius! There was nobody else in Labyrinthia like him!"
Kay sat on the side opposite of Espella and put her arm over Eve's shoulders. "It's been seven years since I lost my father. I wish it would get easier, but it doesn't."
Eve laughed a little. "That's what everyone tells me." And she'd known all along that this Christmas, the first one without him, would be painful. Nothing about this was unexpected. That didn't make it easier to deal with. So she'd chosen not to.
"Talking about my father helps me though," continued Kay. "It helps me feel closer to him when I tell other people about what he was like."
"Yes," Espella agreed. "You really should have come to us sooner, Eve."
Eve shook her head. "Not this time of year. You and Maya are too busy filling holiday orders. I know for a fact that you don't just get them from Santa."
Espella smiled. "I'm never too busy to help you. You should know that already."
That got another little laugh out of Eve. "Fair enough."
In truth, it was a little more complicated than the reason she'd already given. Even if Espella and Maya didn't work in a bakery, and even if it hadn't been the Christmas season, she still wouldn't have wanted to bother them.
Patrolling the town, watching people hang garlands in the windows, listening to her fellow knights happily discuss Christmas plans, Eve often felt stuck. Others could look to a future filled with presents, delicious meals, time spent with family and friends still alive.
Her life was a void. Her future was a list of things she could no longer do. No more walks with her father through the streets of Labyrinthia. No more bringing him his favorite meals as an occasional treat. No more lengthy discussions that kept them up past midnight, even after the candle went out. No time to…
The memory of her father's voice reached out: "…Don't ever touch the Sands without my permission. Time spells are tricky. If you aren't in the right frame of mind, you can find yourself stuck in a single moment after you've cast it."
"…We're stuck," she said aloud.
"Hmm?" Espella tilted her head.
"We know that already, Eve," said Maya. "Any ideas on how to get us unstuck?"
"I think…I think this might be my fault. My father used to tell me that you have to be in the right frame of mind when you're casting a time spell. If you feel like you can't move forward for any reason, the spell might backfire and keep you locked in a single moment."
Kay nodded. "I get it. You're having trouble moving forward from your dad, and now we can't either."
The others were quiet. What could they say? This wasn't a problem easily fixed, even if time was on their side.
Ema stared at the floor. "…I think it might be my fault too. Jean and I have been trying to figure out how to move on too. There was so much we still had to learn from him. We haven't touched his workshop much except when Jean dusts the shelves."
"No, that's not true, Ema." Eve picked up the vial that held the remaining Sands of Time. "You took this from my father's workshop because you wanted to see what would happen if you used it. You're still carrying out his work with your own experiments." She set the vial down. "The truth is, I asked Jean not to touch anything."
"I don't think she wanted to either," said Ema.
"No. Why would you?" Maya hugged herself. "My sister and I didn't touch our mom's stuff after she vanished for a couple of years. I guess we figured that if we left everything like it was, that meant she was coming back soon. She wasn't gone for good."
As soon as Maya said it, Eve knew that was exactly why she had done the same thing. "Stupid," she muttered. "I already know he isn't coming back." But it was hard to accept, all the same.
Espella gave her another hug. "I have an idea: when you're ready, why don't we all come and help you clean your father's house and his workshop? We can invite Jean too."
Eve hugged her back. "I think I would like that, actually. If you're there to help me."
A sudden shout nearly made them jump out of their skins, followed by the sharp clang of metal.
"Take that back, or I'll give you a taste of my Christmas spirit, Garrison!"
Eve jumped to her feet and ran to the door. She knew the voice of that knight. And there they were, out in the frozen street. But now they were moving. Mary's sheep bleated as it got out from under her arms. Emeer had jumped to his feet, awoken by the wine that finally poured into his lap. Snow landed on the ground. And Lettie cried out, "Aha!" as she pulled an envelope triumphantly from her bag. "There you are, you little bugger!"
Her friends clustered around her in the doorway. "Are we back?" asked Maya. "Did we finally get unstuck?"
"Looks like it," said Eve, smiling.
"Ha! We did it!" She threw her arms around Eve and hugged her tight. "Well, you did it. And Ema."
"You helped."
"Yes! We helped!" Maya echoed, pumping her fists. "All right! Espella! Get the trays out! We need to make sure those sweets are ready when Santa comes. I'm going to go check on Patty and see if she needs anything."
When all was said and done, Eve made her way back home. She could hear the sound of sleigh bells approaching Labyrinthia and the bakery. Just in time.