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last, breaking her out of her thoughts. “We want to show you something very special Lilly, something we never would have dared show you when we were in college.
    Lilly’s white heels sank deep in the snow. She stood still for a long minute, shocked, then took a hasty step back, almost toppling over but for Nick’s steadying hand on her arm.
    “Oh…my…God!”
    This cannot be real. This can’t be happening.
    Woozy and light-headed from shock, Lilly felt her legs give way. Luckily, Nick caught her, pulling her tight against his body to stop her from falling into the snow.
    A massive sled stood before her. It could have seated twenty people, and it blocked the entire road. Made from some kind of polished dark wood, it gleamed in the moonlight. Hundreds of fairy lights sparkled along the sides, front and back. Sleigh bells covered the harness on the team of thirteen reindeer. The animal at the front of the team had a shiny red nose. Her mind fogged over, and she couldn’t speak.
    I must be dreaming.
    Nick stood behind her, his strong hands on her shoulders, his breath warm on the back of her neck. He couldn’t have felt more real. This was no dream.
    “This is Santa’s sleigh? Wh…where are the presents?”
    “Oh, they’re in a magic cargo hold. It’s bottomless. But tonight’s the twenty-second of December. We don’t have children’s toys in there. Tonight’s Adults’ Night, the night when Kris and I deliver.”
    One of the reindeer snorted and pawed the ground, giving Lilly a start. Kris scratched the animal at the base of his antlers and pulled an apple out of his pocket, offering it to the creature. The animal snorted happily.
    “S-so…it’s all true? You’ve really lived with Santa Claus? You’re…elves or sylphs, like you always claimed?” She eyed Nick, noting the way his muscles strained the seams of his red Santa coat. “I thought elves or sylphs were meant to be tiny, wispy things with fairy wings.”
    Nick made a face. “Personally, I prefer to look like a guy. Both Kris and I are part mortal. We can shift into that kind of fairy form if we want, but we rarely do. I’d rather fly in the sleigh than fly with wings. To be honest, it’s incredibly painful for a half fae like me to take that form.”
    Lilly’s heart knocked against her rib cage. She couldn’t get her head around all of this. It was crazy! She knew she was babbling, asking too many questions, but she had to know. Had to understand. Had to get some clarity. “If you were brought up by Santa, as you claimed, and lived with him during your childhood and helped him with deliveries, wouldn’t that make you Santa’s elves? When I thought you were making these stories up, I never understood why you called yourselves sylphs and not elves.”
    “We don’t like that term because of all the silly books and things that show us with pointy ears. I mean, do these ears look pointy to you?” Kris pulled back a few locks of his golden hair to show his perfectly human-looking ears, and a giggle escaped her despite herself. “None of us at the North Poll have those stupid pointy ears. I don’t know where that rumor got started.”
    Nick’s lips twitched. “We get called Santa’s elves all the time, Lilly, all the time. To many people, elves are indistinguishable from fae, but being half mortal and having spent time in the mortal world, Kris and I are more aware of how mortals perceive things, I guess. That’s why we prefer to be called fae.”
    All those silly conversations she remembered having with them in the student pub about how they grew up with Santa flooded back into her mind. There’d been times she’d laughed and enjoyed what she thought of as their shtick, and other times it had just been annoying.
    So many questions filled her head, and randomly, some formed on her lips. “I remember you two always used to talk about being half mortal. Does being part mortal mean you’re, um…immortal? Do fairies never