"What is it?" Alfred asked, not (at first) following her train of thought and rather surprised by what a strong reaction she was having to what he considered, at least for the moment, a mild inconvenience. His feet might have been stuck, but it wasn't as though they were sinking into the cobblestones, or anything. This would be a temporary problem — it could not be otherwise, in the middle of a bustling shopping area — and for someone who had seen men die in front of him, it rated rather low on the whole myriad of things that could happen. She seemed rather distraught, though, which made Alfred glance around to see what had elicited such a response, and it took only a moment before his eyes landed on the mistletoe.

Having not had any previous experience with this sort of thing, he was still rather perplexed. Mistletoe had no magical properties in and of itself, at least as far as he was aware, and while its presence here was a bit obnoxious (in an oh yes, your little holiday decoration is quite adorable, now go the fuck away sort of way), it did not strike him as necessarily problematic. "You don't think that has something to do with it?"