He is a fox one moment and a grinning mage the next, the Spirit of the Present, and he insists that an accidental boop on the nose counts as a proper fox marriage. Sixteen chapters of snowball wagers, a candy workshop, a Christmas market and a ski slope, before a lopsided fruitcake he swears he has tasted before drags up a life the two already shared — and Death arrives to reclaim what it loaned out.