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Emma Frost stared up at the moonlight which --with the pregnant clouds -- made a ghostly, backlit bas-relief of the Massachusetts night sky.

With displeasure, Emma noted the furrow in the brow of her reflection on the window as she gazed out.

Her vision was haloed in a painful blur that throbbed in time with her pulse; another migraine. She had kept them from Sean and the others -- but they had been recurring with greater intensity and greater frequency since the return of her telepathic powers. Yet there was no pain associated with the use of her telepathy. This left Frost unsettled, bewildered, and more than a little concerned.

It had been months: Monet and Jonothon seemed to have made a complete recovery from the psilence caused by the events that Jean Grey in New York had described as the Psi War. Jean Grey, Xavier, even Tessa and Moonstar -- yes, Emma had been keeping tabs -- were all seeming to return to their former power levels without any complications.

So why, then, was Emma Frost subject to hours of exquisite agony with no surcease except to lie in the dark with a cold cloth on her face?

Carefully examining the past few months, Emma could find no basis for her condition in past experiences. She had lately faced no foe worse than Nate Grey -- and he had done no more than give her an unceremonious telepathic boot out of his mind when she probed curiously at him.

Emma considered whether it was the stress of dealing with her two dear sisters, but dismissed that as well. Cordelia was a pretender and a poseur. She was no serious threat to Emma -- and never would be.

Adrienne had definitely increased the stress level for Emma, arriving on her financial white horse and bailing out the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. But Adrienne was gone now. She had vanished into the night, without a thought for the cash she'd sunk into the venture. A little ... mission she'd sent the Generation X kids on had nearly killed them, and Emma's elder sister had taken the better part of valor. ~As usual.~

That her distress could stem from the strain of dealing with the hundreds of minds on the campus now that they were accepting human students again was a thought Emma dismissed out of hand. The Massachusetts campus had hosted a body of mundnae students before, when she had been taskmistress to the Hellions. Time away from the chaotic backbuzz of psionic noise ought not have caused her anywhere near sufficient difficulty for a migraine.

Yet she had them -- with alarming frequency and such severity that occasionally the world swam and danced in a watery blur before her eyes.

Christmas was approaching, and there was no end in sight to this mysterious malady. Cassidy was, in his fumbling way, concerned and sweet. But Emma had long schooled herself never to show weakness, or a chink in her armor. If she did not get rid of the migraines soon, Sean would discover them. That, Emma would not permit.

A tap at the door to her office shook Emma from her introspections. It was Angelo with her mail.

"Hopin' your familia doesn't decide to do the 'holiday drop-ins' thing, Emma?" Angelo's smile was rakish -- almost a smirk. But Emma, of course, couldn't miss that he was melancholy beneath the facade; he missed his own family.

The holiday season was hard for most of her students. Monet and her twin sisters, Everett, and Paige Guthrie were the only ones of her charges who had family to return home to. Jubilee had spent the better part of the afternoon locked in her room. The holidays reminded her she was an orphan, and she occasionally took that very hard -- especially since she had nearly lost Logan, who was the nearest thing to kin she had left.

"Something like that, Angelo," Emma favored him with a small smile. "And pondering perhaps a vacation myself during the inter-session. Some sunny clime."

Angelo quirked his lips in a faint, wry expression, then nodded. "Well, at least you can afford it, Maestra. Feliz Navidad."

"Same to you, Angelo," she murmured, and watched him turn to leave.

The usual assortment of bills and boring academic junkmail waited atop her desk. But an unfamiliar manila envelope with no postmark caught her attention. ~At least it will give me something else to concentrate on,~ Emma thought, pushing concerns and the pain of her migraine to her hindbrain.

A manicured fingernail slit open the envelope, and the whisper of paper greeted her as photographs fell out, unaccompanied by a letter to identify them; the only words in the package were scrawled hastily on a post-it note: THE NEW HELLIONS.

Some of the faces were unrecognizable to her. Two, however, Emma found famililar; one face Emma found *painfully* familiar.

Amara Aquilla -- once codenamed Magma -- glared out of the picture at the unseen photographer.

But more startling than that was the face half-hidden behind a curtain of auburn hair. ~Marie-Ange Tolbert...!~ Emma's eyes widened as her brows drew together. ~Tarot?~

~Alive?!~

The room twisted around her, vertigo threatening Emma's equilibrium. She sat heavily in her white leather office chair, and waited for the spell to pass. She gritted her teeth until she had focused past the pain, then lifted the phone from its cradle. A number she had on speed dial warbled musically from the receiver.

The voice that answered on the other end was smooth as silk, and filled with an audible allure. "Si?"

"Manuel. Darling."

"Emma! A delightful surprise, se�orita. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Empath did sound genuinely happy to hear her voice. ~It seems,~ she reflected, ~being Prince of Nightmares is agreeing with him.~

"Business," Emma replied.

"Always business, my dear Emma," Manuel mock-lamented, "Never pleasure."

Emma chuckled, then got down to brass tacks. "I've just had the strangest thing dropped on my desk. I was wondering if anyone had approached you about joining the New Hellions."

"Si, I did. I declined; I am content with my current status." He laughed throatily. "How may I be of assistance, Se�orita Frost?" His accent had thickened since he had returned to his native Spain.

"Can you tell me who it was who approached you? I ... am quite curious about why they chose to call themselves the New Hellions." Emma tilted one hip onto the desk, holding the picture of Tarot in her free hand. Though her face gave no sign of emotion beyond polite curiosity, the photograph quivered in her grasp.

"Ah, si. I can. The invitation indicated ... where is it, where is it?" A moment of muffled sound ensued as Manuel searched through his desk. "Ah. Here it is. In the States. North Carolina." Manuel's voice practically dripped disdain.

Emma listened to Manuel describe the location and give an address. She wrote them down, and smiled into the phone. "Gracias, Manuel. And Merry Christmas."

"To you as well, Emma. Sweet dreams." Manuel's throaty laughter emanated from the receiver until Emma set it down; as recompense for her assistance previously -- Nightmare and Empath left Emma's dreams -- for the most part -- blissfully undisturbed.

Emma paused in thought then dialed another number. A few moments' time and that call was completed as well. Her private jet would be fueled and ready to go first thing in the morning.

She carried a third conversation on en route to her bedroom, to change and to prepare for the big day she was already planning.

"Avengers Mansion, Jarvis speaking."

"Good evening, Mr. Jarvis. I would like to speak with Firestar please."

"I am sorry, Miss Firestar and Mister Justice are both out of the mansion at this time. May I take a message?"

"Thank you, no." Emma hung up, dialed again.

Four rings, and the phone was picked up.

"Hello?" said the voice at the other end. It was New York accented, and the pauses between words were accented with the sound of chewing gum.

"Tabitha. Please put Samuel on the phone." Emma's tone was perhaps thirty two frigid degrees below cordial.

"Who is this?"

"Emma Frost."

There was a pause; apparently Tabitha was considering what to tell the caller. "How'd you find us out here?"

"Sam calls his sister. We *do* have caller ID," Emma explained, in that too-patient tone adults often used with particularly reticent children. "And it's not as though you're keeping a low profile, what with Roberto having used his -- assets -- to purchase your new ... headquarters." It was a warehouse, really; and X-Force had made no pretense of being covert.

"Oh."

"Would you put him on please?" Emma allowed the tiniest hint of impatience and annoyance to creep into her voice. "Tell him it's the White Queen." She put subtle emphasis on her nom de guerre.

Emma smiled; she heard a series of dull plastic clunks that indicated Tabitha Smith had likely dropped the phone. "Oh. Right. Just a second."

"H'lo...?"

"Hello, Sam. I am just doing a little checking. It appears that some of my old students were approached to join a group called the 'New Hellions.' I was wondering if you had been extended such an invitation?"

"Not as such, ma'am, no. But we have -- encountered them recently. "

Sam's voice, to Emma's trained ear, held a small amount of pain. ~No doubt he's blaming himself for not having 'rescued' Amara and Marie.~

"What can you tell me about them?"

"You're not plannin' on invitin' them up to Mass-Ac are ya, Miss Frost?" For the most part, Sam's Kentucky drawl was gone -- but concern had brought it right back into his voice.

"No, no, nothing like that. However, if they're on a ...'recruitment drive,' it would behoove me to train our students here, in case they are approached. That *does* meet with your approval, does it not?"

Sam had the good grace to sound chastened. "Of course, ma'am. Ah should've thought t'tell you 'bout them from the start. How can ah help?"

"Tell me about what we'd be up against, should they decide to bring their membership drive to my doorstep, hm?"

"Ah'd be glad to. You can expect a disc FedExed to ya in the mornin', Miss Frost."

"Thank you, Sam. That would be a great help to me."

"Certainly, ma'am. Glad some of us can cooperate."

"As am I."

"Happy Holidays, Miss Frost."

"And to you, Mister Guthrie."

Emma hung up the phone and went to draw herself a bath. The morning would herald a busy day for her.