In the morning, Martin's text reached her while she carried her breakfast-- a simple cup of coffee as her stomach, tied in knots since Martin left her with Eric the previous night, found the idea of food perfectly unappealing-- to the kitchen table and sat down, huddled under a blanket, already dressed for work, feeling drained of all energy, too tired to bother with rekindling the fires for the half hour she had before she would leave.

Victoria woke up with a terrible headache but sober, he informed, and he, having made sure that she was fit enough to look after Lily, was on his way to deal with his brother. Then he would wait for Daniel to be delivered by his friend's mother from the pyjama party, load him in the car and drive him to his mother's parents, who lived in a small town in the mountains some one hundred and fifty kilometres away. They would be back in time for Clelia's Christmas dinner tomorrow, he assured her.

Nora was burning with curiosity about this side of Martin, this part of his life, this family she didn't know. She wanted to ask if he would visit Bertha wherever she was... But this shouldn't concern her; it wasn't her place to ask questions about something he apparently wanted to leave behind, or at least did not wish to drag between the two of them. He had already told her as much as he was comfortable with her knowing at this stage of their relationship.

Nora sighed as she typed her reply, 'Have a great time with Daniel. Say hello to him from me, please. I'll see you both tomorrow.'

She finished her coffee, rinsed her cup in the sink, and then carried her blanket to the sofa, casting her eyes around the room. Everything was tidy and clean; she could leave for the day. She had things to do today-- two groups of visitors to lead through the castle, then visit Magdalena in her shop and get herself a ball gown...

She donned her coat and grabbed her handbag, dropping her phone inside as she locked the door behind her, and headed for the castle that grew in front of her as she descended the snow-covered meadow.

"Nora!"

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the freezing metal as she locked the door leading to the castle's cave and vault after her last visitor. Eric.

Inhaling deeply, she turned to face her reality, crossing her arms around her body in an attempt to ward off Eric as well as the cold. Exiting the much warmer cave, the gust of freezing wind carrying the scent and promise of another snowfall that rushed around her, sweeping across the courtyard, brushing past the sliding doors of the hotel where Eric stood, then whistling through the Entry Hall, forcing the last visitors of the castle before Christmas to adjust their scarves, and search their pockets for hats and gloves, made her shiver.

"Eric," she said in lieu of a greeting as he reached her, his body filling her entire field of vision, towering above her.

"Martin and Daniel are gone, they left me alone!" he complained like a little, neglected boy, his puppy eyes making her giggle involuntarily. "I just moved to my hotel room, my big brother wouldn't have me around his place the whole Christmas." He chuckled. "I wonder why?"

His eyes bored into Nora's, making her feel guilty... and victorious and content at the same time.

"However," he continued when she said nothing, "this leaves the entire afternoon to ourselves. Martin very mysteriously said that at least he wouldn't be in our way should you want to talk to me..."

Oh, Martin! Nora's fingers itched to pull her phone from the pocket of the castle's floor-length coat she was wearing and ask him if he talked to Victoria and Lily as he had promised. She would have called him if she didn't know that he was driving at the moment. The roads leading to small towns in the mountains were not easily navigable in winter.

"This is not the moment to talk, Eric, I have things to do," she said, heading towards the Entry Hall, leaving him behind. Just how was she supposed to bring up the subject of her youthful love of Eric, did Martin think it was that simple? That it wouldn't make her feel embarrassed and make her recall the conversation every time she would meet Eric in the future?!

Nora entered the office where she left the castle's coat and keys and picked up her own coat and handbag, wishing a Happy Christmas to the elderly woman waiting for her there; Nora would not see her again until the twenty-seventh. She almost managed to forget about Eric in the meantime as her thoughts kept strolling to Martin and gasped as she bumped into him on exiting the office.

"Let me come with you wherever you need to go," he said, his hands on her hips, steadying her unnecessarily.

"Eric..." she uttered his name on a sigh. "I'm going to town, to Magdalena's boutique. Then I'll go to Clelia's and help her with the preparations for tomorrow's dinner," she announced, hoping to bore him out of his decision to hang around her.

"Perfect. Let's go," he said, making her frown, lacing his arm around hers the moment she slipped on the frozen wood of the drawbridge.

Whatever. "Fine," she agreed, taking him with her down the cobbled path, into the park and out again in silence, until they stood in front of Magdalena's shop. It was closed.

Nora wasn't sure how to feel about it-- she hadn't really wanted to attend the ball, and yet she had... However, destiny decided for her. There was nothing to do now, nowhere to get a ball gown on the early afternoon of the twenty-fourth of December.

"Were you... coming here for a reason?" Eric asked, scattering her thoughts, puzzled by her apparent surprise at finding the boutique shut.

"No," she replied quickly, "I just wanted to talk to Magdalena. Nothing important. Now let me find Clelia. She might be in the square..."

That's where they found her, setting her books on her stall for the last time this year, the market ending today.

Nora wished her godmother's mouth didn't form that perfect O of surprise as she watched her approaching with Eric on her arm.

"Well, hello, Eric," she said, letting him pull her into an embrace, making Nora's lips mirror Clelia's surprise at seeing their antics. Her godmother seemed to be on much friendlier terms with Eric than with Martin. "I thought you were coming later today."

"I arrived last afternoon, surprising everyone," he said, then chuckled as he winked at Nora. "And I'm glad I did, Nora and I will have more time to reconnect."

Clelia raised her eyebrows at Nora, who only sighed and shrugged in response.

"I want to help you with the preparations for tomorrow's dinner. No, I have nothing more important to do this afternoon, I insist," she added, anticipating Clelia's protests.

"And I want to help too. You feed all of us each Christmas, and I've never helped you before." That caused Clelia's eyebrows to rise again, this time at him.

Nora admired her godmother for not wording the line addressed to Eric she could easily read in her eyes, 'You only want to hang out with her and know she won't let you close otherwise.'

"Fine, whatever will make you two happy. First, you'll let me feed you, and then I'll have you cleaning and making biscuits. How does that sound?" she proposed, preceding them across the square, towards the road leading to her house.

"Wonderful," Nora and Eric said in unison, making her laugh.

The afternoon at Clelia's wasn't as awkward as Nora was expecting it to be. After lunch, Clelia had Nora preparing the dough for several kinds of cakes and biscuits she wanted to serve her guests tomorrow while she armed Eric with a feather duster and sent him around the house which, to Nora's surprise, he seemed to treat like his own.

"How come you know him so well?" Nora couldn't resist asking Clelia while she rolled out a dough on the floured surface of Clelia's marble kitchen counter after they laughed at Eric's pantomime of brandishing the duster at an imaginary spider web spanning the corner of the sitting room.

Don Quixote, that's how he looked to Nora; always had. She wondered now if it was his exaggerated gallantry, his foolish knightliness, his passion for life, for living in the moment without considering the consequences and the future, that had made her fall in love with him before. Everything was way simpler and more romantic with his approach to life.

Clelia looked at her for a long while before she said, "I've heard his version of what had been between you two in the past, and I know that he... had felt for you more that he had been ready to admit to himself or you back then."

"This is... not helpful, Clelia," Nora muttered, pressing the heart cutter to the dough with more than the necessary force.

"But it's true, and I think you should know. So, I know him well because he has kind of always been around, even after you stopped coming here. It wasn't as easy for him as he made it out, learning that his beloved older brother was only his half brother, and the old Count's heir on top of it. But he pulled through, luckily, and the two brothers manage to keep on very good terms. He's not bad, Nora, he just... doesn't seem to have found his happy place in life so far. He's still searching." Clelia shrugged, pushed Nora gently away from the cut-out biscuits, and scooped them up one by one with a long metal spatula, transferring them onto a baking tray lined with baking paper.

"I'm done, girls," Eric's voice coming from too close behind Nora made her jump, her reaction sending Clelia in a fit of giggles.

"I'll have you sticking these hearts together with jam the moment they are cooked," she promised him. "In the meantime, you could persuade Nora to make us some hot chocolate, I know from Daniel and Martin that her chocolate is the best."

Clelia! Nora screamed inwardly. She just realised that her still so very new relationship with Martin might cause a rift between the brothers, and she didn't want that; she didn't want to be the cause of their falling apart... But maybe the old woman was right, Daniel and Martin had become a part of her life, of herself... The sooner Eric understood this, the better, right?

"You already made us eat too much sugar this afternoon, Clelia. How about we decorate your Christmas tree for you instead?" Nora proposed.

"I didn't mean to make the Christmas tree this year. It's so much work..."

"You meant to entertain families with kids, Lino and Magdalena, and Victoria and my brother, without a Christmas tree in the house? That's crazy!" Eric said, wrapping his arm over Nora's shoulders, claiming her into his team against the families he had just mentioned.

And he was right; the other invitees were all parents. Suppressing a sigh, Nora closed her eyes briefly; these two were making everything look so much more complicated for her and she wondered briefly if Clelia considered Nora's situation some kind of a contest between the two brothers and rooted for Eric...

"What do you say, Nora?" Eric's words disturbed her reverie.

"He's right, Clelia. Daniel mentioned that it was a tradition to bring and unwrap the Christmas presents here, so we definitely need a Christmas tree."

"Fine, fine, run upstairs, kids, you'll find both the tree and the decorations under the bed in the spare bedroom," Clelia dismissed them with a wave of her hand before she turned back towards her biscuits.