100 Yellow Doors

11:26 p.m.

Iman wrapped her arms around herself and glared at Julien. He never got tired of this, did he? Being here in his warm house and playing slow, waltzing holiday music over the radio and making cookies at—she glanced at the wall clock for the first time—one in the morning. He got to be here and be comfortable while she got jerked around in time and space like it was child's play.

Iman certainly got tired.

"2019," Iman answered. She leaned her ear toward the hall, where the music was wafting from, until she could recognize the tune: "Last Christmas." The old, pre-Taylor Swift version. She scowled. "August."

"2019, hm?" Julien said. He hummed along to the music for a second before adding, "I wonder what the hell I'm up to right now."

"You're in DC, actually."

Julien's eyebrows rose, his face suddenly alight with surprise. "I'm—but that's all the way on the other side of the country."

"I know. But you're there. In the same city as me. I just met you in the present. You were—"

He shushed her, shaking his head and starting in the direction of the kitchen. "Don't tell me any more," he said, brushing past her. He called over his shoulder, "It's better if we just let things play out on their own, yes? You told me that once."

After a beat of hesitation, Iman pivoted and followed Julien into the kitchen, strolling past his array of lazily hung up string lights and his bare Christmas tree. Until then she hadn't been aware that vampires even celebrated Christmas. It almost seemed sacrilegious, especially when she thought of the fact Julien couldn't even go anywhere near a church.

The kitchen was sugar and baking powder and vanilla, an explosion of ingredients across the small island as if a tornado had blown through. There was a baking sheet balanced on the stove; Iman counted twelve cookies, all shaped like various Christmas items. Snowmen, elves, candy canes, a reindeer or two. Somehow they were immaculate; whenever Iman tried to bake her own, they always came out as strange-looking blobs.

Julien thrust a piping bag filled with bright red icing at her. "Here," he said, handing her a cookie, too. "Decorate something. May as well make yourself useful."

Iman narrowed her eyes at him, but nevertheless lowered the bag to the cookie—a candy cane-shaped one. She drew the outline of a rectangle and started to fill it, trying at once to reconcile this Julien with the one she'd just met back home. "You haven't told me where—or when—I am."

"Oh. 1986. California. You got lucky, sweetheart. It's the coldest night of the year, they said."

Iman grimaced. "Lovely." Then: "Jesus. I'm not even born yet."

Julien sputtered. "You aren't? You absolute baby."

"Everyone's a baby to you, Jules. And no, I'm not born yet. My oldest sister isn't even born yet, not for another year."

"As I said," Julien reiterated. "You absolute child."

She finished her red stripes, set the pipe down, and motioned Julien to hand her the white piping bag. As "The Christmas Song" began to play and Julien started humming again, Iman asked, "Who are these for, anyway? It's not like..."

"I can taste things," Julien explained. Iman thought she heard a peeved note in his voice, like it was a misconception he was tired of debunking. "It's just that nothing has any nutritional value anymore."

"So you can eat whatever the hell you want and not get fat."

"Yes. Sort of."

"Sounds like a deal to me."