A soft buzz of anticipation flowed from the Reindeer Common Room to where Lacey was outside. On her one side, Peter stood stiffly, not meeting her gaze and only responding to direct questions. On her other, Mathilda supported her under her elbow, casting unhappy looks at her and Peter, but not saying anything. Lacey’s own heart ached at the silent treatment, but there wasn’t much she could do about it without betraying her own emotions.

  This needs to wait, she told herself. There’d be plenty of time to feel her misery afterwards. Right now, though, the elves needed forensic accountant Lacey and she wouldn’t fail. She nodded her readiness at Mathilda, leaning on her as they entered the room. The assembled elves parted to let them through, the buzz becoming louder as speculation flew about, while worried eyes followed her progress through the room.

  Melo intercepted them as they reached the front. His eyes were frantic and his frazzled beard pointed in several different directions with whole clumps missing since the last time Lacey had seen him.

  He stabbed his fingers into the disarray, clutching and pulling at the remaining hair. ‘They’re saying you know what happened to Jinxy. Where is she? You have to tell me!’

  Behind him, Peter raised an eyebrow at her. You’re the one claiming to know what’s going on, his expression said. You deal with this. She was on her own now, her former team mate creating more distance between them with every passing moment.

  ‘Yes, I think I do,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry Melo, but I need to sort out just a few more details first, and then I can tell all of you exactly what’s going on.’

  For a moment it looked like he wanted to reach forward to shake the truth out of her, but then he stepped away, his shoulders slumping again. Another false hope, she read into his composure. She prayed he wasn’t right. Reinforcing the confident composure she was projecting, she continued stepping forward with Mathilda by her side.

  At the front, on top of a small raised platform, stood a half-moon of chairs. As she requested, Jinxy’s friends filed up to sit down, with Elf taking the last seat of the half-moon, leaving the middle chair open for her. Today there was no side-table with glühwein – probably for the best since Danji was also here. Golly had claimed a chair close to the platform, watching as Danji took her seat.

  Mathilda helped her limp onto the platform and then sat down on the other side of Danji once Lacey was settled. Peter took the remaining open chair, next to Mathilda at the other end of the half-moon, ready to help Lacey observe, as she had asked him to do. On Lacey’s other side sat Cynthie and then Bethy next to Elf.

  She took a deep breath, but before she could speak, another voice rose from the circle.

  ‘Why am I here,’ Elf demanded, his face bunched up in anger. ‘This spectacle has nothing to do with me. Does Santa know what you’re making us do when we’re supposed to be finishing up the toys. Huh, does he?’

  An annoyed murmur spread through the crowd in front of the platform, the words ‘Jinxy’, ‘ill-tempered elf’, and ‘no shame’ woven through it.

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Cynthie accused with a scowl. ‘Now you suddenly care about toys, after complaining about filling in for Jinxy every day since she’s been gone?’

  Peter raised his hands to quiet everyone down. ‘The toys are fine,’ he said firmly. ‘Right now, Jinxy is more important and Lacey thinks she’s figured it out. So, let’s give her a chance and find out what’s going on.’

  Elf leaned back with a scowl, while Bethy shifted uncomfortably in her chair. Danji’s eyes only blinked curiously behind her glasses.

  Grateful for his support, Lacey met Peter’s eyes, only to feel a pang in her chest at the stiffness of his nod. The sudden distance between them was devastating, but there was nothing she could do about it.

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  She looked away, focusing on the elves around them, and said, ‘Thank you for being here, everyone. I know we’re in the final stages of finishing up and loading the toys, but it’s time to unravel the mystery of Jinxy’s disappearance.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Melo said, glaring at Elf.

  Lacey ignored the interjection. ‘Peter, may I ask you to invoke the Rite of Truth again?’ Looking around the half-moon and the rows of onlookers, she continued, ‘We need veracity today. Jinxy has been gone long enough.’

  Peter nodded, then said, speaking to the whole gathering, ‘By the Rite of Truth, we shall ask only what must be asked, and you must answer with honesty. No evasion, no embellishment – only the truth that sits in your heart.’

  Elf shifted uncomfortably, his scowl deepening. He wasn’t the only one. Cynthie had her arms crossed, and Bethy stared uncomfortably at the floor. It almost looked like she was trying to avoid catching Elf’s eye from where he sat beside her. Mathilda reached out and patted Danji’s shoulder, who looked like she was about to tear up.

  Noting it all, Lacey spoke.

  ‘So, when Jinxy disappeared the Starday before last no one was that worried about it. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and she always returned safe. The only one who was worried about it, was me. As an outsider I didn’t know her well enough to be aware of how often and harmless her disappearances were. I assumed the worst. Was I wrong? Let’s see.’

  Melo’s face fell as she spoke. Steeling herself, Lacey kept going, even as she could feel his anxious hope weighing down on her, like a rescuer being pulled down by a drowning man.

  ‘I need all of your help to confirm the truth,’ she said.

  The assembled elves straightened, Jinxy’s friends on stage looking uncomfortably at her. All except Cynthie, who said, ‘Well, let’s get to it then. I’ve got a toy to finish.’

  Inclining her head, Lacey accepted Cynthie’s impatience.

  Returning to the subject, she looked at Melo and said, ‘Melo, you told me on the afternoon when Jinxy went missing, that she was supposed to meet up with you at the pub. You didn’t think she would’ve wandered off because she generally kept her plans with you.’

  He nodded unhappily. ‘She’s an absentminded elf, but she’s never let me down.’

  At that Elf rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. He wasn’t the only elf who looked sceptical.

  ‘I happen to agree with you,’ Lacey said, earning more curious looks. ‘Jinxy had left a half-made toy behind on her workbench. Is that something an elf working towards a master-toymaker title would do?’

  ‘Never,’ Cynthie said from her right-hand side.

  ‘Not just that, Cynthie,’ Lacey said, addressing her. ‘She’d left the cookie timer she had borrowed from you on her desk in her cottage – ready to bring with to the workshop the next day. She wasn’t planning to go anywhere.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean much, Lass,’ Albyrne said from the crowd. ‘Some thought could’ve flitted into her head, and she would’ve wandered off without thinking twice.’

  ‘That might be true, but on top of the half-finished toy and the cookie timer, she’d also been waiting for a package to be delivered on the Polar Express.’

  ‘Yes,’ Danji said. ‘I walked with her partway when she went to wait for its arrival.’

  Lacey nodded. ‘So, we’ve got one, two, three reasons that say she wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Four if we count her plans with Melo.’

  The elves in the room nodded, following Lacey’s logic.

  ‘Therefore, my first thought was that something had happened to her, even though no-one else agreed with me. As time went on, it seemed more and more likely. Especially when Peter and I found this note in her cottage.’

  She held up the note, reading it aloud.

  Hiya Jinx

  Mind stopping by the candy fields this afternoon? I’ve got something I want to show you. It’ll look really great in your collage!

  Then she said, ‘Neither Peter nor Danji recognised the handwriting. I’m going to pass the note around. Does it look familiar to any of you? Maybe a neighbour’s or a friend’s, or even your own. This is not to cause trouble for anyone, I just need to know whether I can rule it out or whether to look deeper still.’

  Passing the note down the half-moon of chairs, she watched it disappear into the crowd and circle around. It moved slowly, the elves bunching up over it, whispering to themselves, while scrutinising it intensely.

  ‘But no-one writes like this!’ little Elyi declared from where he stared over the shoulders of two female elves. From the resemblance, one of them was his mom.

  She looked up at the little platform. ‘It’s true. None of us write like this – the letters are completely different from how we’re taught.’

  The little note made it back to the stage, where Peter took it and slid it into a pocket.

  ‘That was our conclusion as well,’ Lacey confirmed. ‘And combined with the piece of Jinxy’s coat Peter and I found at the edge of the Wasteland – well, it is troubling.’

  ‘And ye thought I might’ve done it, cause of the paint,’ Albyrne helpfully supplied. ‘But I didn’t.’

  Lacey nodded, acknowledging it too.

  ‘These are just two threads of the tapestry, but I believe I know how to weave them in,’ Lacey said, looking directly at Danji.

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