I was bouncing around on Santa’s lap, reading off my list of demands. I was willing to compromise on the razor wire and machine-gun nests, but I insisted on at least one sniper on Sally’s roof and a troop of ninjas guarding the route to school.

“Focus, Virginia.”

“Sorry, Santa, it’s the espresso. I am buzzed like you wouldn’t believe right now, and I am not letting that witch get her hands on my friend Kit again, who probably only wants her daddy back for Christmas but deserves a lot more, and…”

He wrapped his huge, black-gloved hands around my head and pulled my face up to his. Damn, Santa, buy a girl a drink first!

<Focus, Virginia Vesta White>

Owwwwwwww. He took his hands away and I looked into the Old Man’s eyes from way too close. They twinkled. He’s always liked that trick.

I scrambled down off his lap like it was on fire and snapped to attention. Then I remembered that I was technically retired, and then I remembered a recent promise I’d made to myself and kicked him in the shin as hard as I could.

“Ow, you little… well, perhaps I deserved that. But just the once. Don’t be childish.”

I thought about kicking him again, but decided not to push my luck. “If you didn’t want me acting childish, you shouldn’t have turned me into a child. Sir.”

“You’re a child because your Retirement Gift was a life. A complete life. I skipped the diapers and the baby food because you’d have gone mad before you learned to walk, but…”

I interrupted, because, hey, I could interrupt now. “I saw you palm that card! Being a baby would only suck if I remembered being me, and that’s not supposed to happen. Not only do I know too much, I’ve already said too much, to someone capable of understanding it. You set this up. You set us up. What’s your game?”

“Life, yours and theirs. A true reincarnation wouldn’t be a reward, because there’d be no you to deserve it, but turning you loose on the universe as you were would have been tossing a live grenade into a fireworks factory.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment. Meanwhile, Sally’s people aren’t the first to break out and start exploring other worlds, but they might be the smartest, and they’re definitely the nicest. What do you think happens to mortals who stick their noses into Our business?”

Chills down your spine were something else I didn’t know was literally a thing until just now. “They’ll be unmade. You’ll send someone like me to go back and change their history, and they’ll never break out. Sally won’t… there might not even be a Sally.”

He actually grinned at me. “Don’t worry, her existence is surprisingly resilient. This isn’t the first time her people have done this, it’s just the first time they’ve had a friend on the inside. I’ve hidden their latest efforts from the other Powers, and that’s all you need to know.”

Oh, this was way above my former job description. “So what do I do? How do I help them? And how does Kit’s wicked stepmother fit in?”

“In order, nothing, you just did, and she doesn’t. There’s no job, no mission, no quest. You are here to be here, and your life and its problems are yours. This was a courtesy call, unofficial and off the books, and we won’t speak again.”

“Wait, that’s not…”

I woke with the first light of dawn, oddly refreshed and thoroughly tangled up with blankets and Kit. Yes, Virginia, there was a Santa Claus, and he was a bit of a dick. No quest? I had a princess to rescue and a dragon to slay, armed with nothing but my wits and a witch who’d never ridden a man into battle.

No, I had one more thing: three centuries of experience deceiving, intimidating, outwitting, undermining, cat-fighting, back-stabbing, and fucking. Okay, that last one wasn’t going to be useful, but it still counted. Maybe I could write a book after Princess Kit was saved.

The point is, I wasn’t just a little girl, I was the meanest little Mean Girl this world had ever seen, and while first grade was terrifying, bitch-fights were right up my alley.