crayons bumped along behind them, their cardboard case hopping on one corner and muttering in scratchy rainbow voices.
“Careful,” said the tin robot, whose little square feet made a noise like spoons in a drawer. “The humans may detect us.”
“Humans sleep like puddings at Christmas,” said the fox. “Besides, if one wakes up, we shall look adorable and innocent.”
The wooden dragon gave a smoky little snort. “I am carved for grandeur, not innocence.”
They travelled down the hallway beneath photographs of summer picnics, school shoes, and a girl with a gap-toothed grin holding a paper star. A label still dangled from the fox’s ribbon. It swung as he trotted, and the knitted owl leaned down to read it.
“For Elsie,” she whispered. “That must be the girl.”
The fox’s stitched grin twitched. “Then Elsie is very lucky. She is getting us.”
At the end of the hallway stood a tall grandfather clock. Its wooden face was stern, its brass pendulum still. The fox padded closer. “Now that is rude. Clocks are meant to tick when there is adventure about.”
As if insulted, the clock gave one deep TOCK.
The robot flung up both arms. “I did not touch it!”
The hands spun wildly, faster and faster, until they pointed not at twelve, but at a number none of them had noticed before, scratched between the top and the side.
Thirteen.
A line of frost crawled across the clock glass. It formed letters that shone blue-white in the dark.
When the thirteenth tick is heard, the first unwrapped must keep the word.
The crayons went completely silent, which was more alarming than if they had screamed.
“What word?” asked the owl.
The fox swallowed. For the first time that night, his grin looked sewn on rather than chosen. “I expect it is a silly clock word. Tick-tock. Pendulum. Dust.”
Then the rug beneath them dropped.
⁂
They slid down a tunnel lined with old wrapping paper. Gold stars flashed past. Torn tags fluttered like frightened birds. The dragon tried to dig in his wooden claws, the robot clanged against a bend, and the owl shouted, “Wings! I have wings! Why am I not using wings?”
They landed in a heap inside a narrow room beneath the stairs.
It was packed with forgotten things: a mitten with no thumb, a jar of buttons, three cracked baubles, and hundreds of gift tags hanging from strings overhead. In the middle stood a tiny clockwork mouse wearing a crown made from safety pins.
“Late,” she said.
The fox sat up, glitter in his ears. “We are not late. We are early for everything.”
“Not for the Midnight Present Parade.” The mouse wound the key in her own back with brisk little turns. “Name’s Minty Cog. Keeper of Mislaid Gifts, Lost Labels, and Promises Made in Shops Then Immediately Forgotten.”
The robot raised one careful hand. “Is that an official position?”
“It is when nobody else wants it.” Minty pointed at the fox. “You. Moon-paper parcel. First unwrapped. You triggered the thirteenth tick.”
The fox puffed his tail. “I triggered nothing. I merely began a splendid expedition.”
“Same thing, tonight.” Minty’s bead eyes gleamed. “Something has stolen Elsie’s Christmas morning. If you do not fetch it back before sunrise, she will wake to presents she cannot see, songs she cannot hear, and joy she cannot feel.”
The owl pressed closer to the dragon. The robot’s painted mouth trembled. Even the fox lowered his ears.
“Where was it stolen to?” he asked, very softly.
Minty Cog pulled aside a hanging curtain of gift tags. Behind it was the hallway mirror, though it could not possibly fit under the stairs. Its silver surface rippled like water beneath ice.
From inside the mirror came a sound: sleigh bells ringing backwards.
The crayons rattled open. Without anyone touching them, the blue crayon rolled forward and wrote on the floor: Do not trust the mouse.
Minty smiled without warmth. “How rude.”
Then a white paw, long and cold and made of snow, pushed through the mirror and grabbed the fox by his ribbon.
