by Emma Savant
“Her name’s Mouse,” Mary said, coming up behind me. She held out a mug of cocoa, which I accepted. “She’s off with her nanny right now.”
I gave her a look, and she held up her own mug as if to ward me off.
“Yes, our dog has a nanny,” she said. “Deal with it.”
I shrugged. “Good for her.”
“Nick and I are too busy to give her the attention she needs, but she’s got the energy of a puppy and needs to get tired out every day or she’s a little monster.” Mary’s indulgent smile made me think that monster was a term of endearment.
I wished the little monster was here. I felt like it would be easier to talk to Santa with a warm furball on my lap.
I sat back down. The mug was smooth and hot against my hands, and I cupped it tightly as though it was an adequate substitute for the comfort of a dog.
Santa didn’t trust me, and I was surprised at how much that realization made my stomach churn.
I didn’t care about Santa. I hadn’t wanted to come here, and I hadn’t wanted to make friends with him after he’d first caught me snooping around the sleigh. But knowing that he didn’t believe I hadn’t contacted Frost bothered me in a way I couldn’t explain.
It wasn’t just that I liked his laugh in spite of myself, or that I was grateful to him for letting me work in the stables.
There was more to it than that.
Everyone I’d met at the North Pole had such a deep respect for Santa Claus, and everyone I’d met so far at the North Pole was wonderful. Sure, some of them were so relentlessly cheerful that it made my skin crawl, but how bad was that, really? Joy had been nothing but kind to me. Felix always seemed delighted to see me even though we worked together every day. Lucy told me every time our paths crossed how much she missed having me at the House of Claus.
If they all loved Santa, and Santa couldn’t even look at me without turning red with anger, what did that say about me?
I pressed my knees tightly together.
“I didn’t contact Frost,” I said.
Mary sank down into a chair and kicked her shoes off onto the white rug in front of us. She waited for Santa to respond, and, when Santa continued to pace by the window, cleared her throat loudly.
“Nick.”
He stopped pacing, but I couldn’t pretend his attention was really on us. He looked past us and out the plate glass window, then frowned, just enough that his beard changed shape around his mouth.
“Nick, honey, come sit,” Mary said.
He shook his head and went back to pacing. Mary sighed and watched him for a moment, then shrugged at me.
“So, Holly,” she said, in the kind of voice acquaintances usually reserved for the kind of small talk where they asked how I liked my job and if I was dating anyone. I held tight to my cocoa. “Would you mind explaining what exactly happened with you and Frost? We knew he’d broken the barrier somehow, but not that he’d actually gotten in.”
I looked up. “Then how did you know I was talking to him?”
“We didn’t.” Mary leaned back into her chair and crossed her legs. “Someone jumped to conclusions, on account of you being the only wild card within city limits.”
Santa grunted and waved her off.
“You’d been asking about him,” Santa said. “It’s no secret you’d like to get out of here sooner rather than later.”
“I didn’t contact him,” I said, and was startled by the vehemence in my own voice. “I don’t think he was even here, not really. Unless he’s see-through. Is that something you elves can do?”
Santa’s head jerked up and he looked at me intently. “See-through?”
“Yeah, like, translucent,” I said. “He looked more like a projection than a person.”
“He used a fogging spell,” Santa said. He sounded almost relieved, as though this was the last piece in a puzzle, but didn’t stop walking back and forth. I was getting tired just from watching him.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning,” Mary suggested, so I did. I told them everything I could think of, from Felix asking me to get the harnesses to when I’d run into Santa and Mary outside the stables.
“He found me,” I said. “I don’t know how he knew I’d been asking about him. I did ask about him, and I did think maybe he could be my ride home—but trust me, I have no desire to ever meet him again.” I shivered despite the warmth from their fire. “I get why everyone sounds so creeped out when they talk about him.”
“Jack’s magic is powerful,” Santa said. “No doubt he’s found some spell that lets him peek at what we’re doing here.”
He finally seemed to have exhausted himself. He dropped into one of the chairs with a grunt, then leaned forward and looked at the flames dancing in the grate.
“I just don’t know how he’s getting through,” he muttered.
“I think we’ve concluded it’s not through Holly,” Mary said pointedly.
Santa looked at me. His face was pale and tired and maybe a little embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I jumped to conclusions. That was unfair of me.”
Never in a thousand years would I have imagined Santa Claus might be in a position to apologize to me.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I understand.”
We fell silent, all of us watching the fire. I sipped my cocoa.
“Frost said he doesn’t want oil,” I said. “He wants the pole. What is that?”
Santa and Mary exchanged looks, and finally, Mary nodded a little.
“I think you should ask Felix,” she said. “He can tell you as much as we can. For now, I think Nick and I need to get back to work.”
“There are still ways to strengthen the barrier we haven’t tried yet,” Santa agreed.
He moved as though he were going to stand back up and launch right back into work, or maybe just start pacing again, but Mary leaned over and put a hand on his knee.
“I’ll have Security come here,” she said gently. “You sit. We still need to eat lunch anyway.” She turned to me. “Holly, thank you so much for telling us everything. That’s valuable information. If our sensors are seeing Frost, but he’s only using a projection spell, that means we’re at least a little ahead of him still.”
“We’ll have the sleigh soon, at least,” Santa said, looking down at his hands. “The parts were delivered this morning. If only we’d thought to have our guards watching the pole room instead of the faerie couriers.”
I stood. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything else.”
“Please,” Mary said. “It could be the difference between life and—well.”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Chapter 17
I shoveled my lunch into my mouth without tasting it. I couldn’t think why I felt so stressed on behalf of the entire North Pole, but Frost had appeared to me, and now it felt like I had some kind of responsibility to this place.
It was an irrational feeling, and an unshakeable one.
“Are you okay?”
Joy sat her plate down next to mine and slid into the chair beside me. I looked up, and it took a second to process that she was there and had asked me a question. I shook my head quickly.
“Fine,” I said, in the kind of overly bright voice people used when they were big fat liars.
Mary and Santa hadn’t sworn me to secrecy, but I felt like this was secret. They might still be one step ahead of him, but Frost had appeared inside the North Pole. Even if it was just a spell, that seemed like the kind of thing that could send the entire elven population into a panic.
I stabbed a salad leaf.
“Sorry,” I said. “Just thinking about the reindeer. The power going out spooked them pretty badly.”
“Aww,” she said, making a sympathetic face. “Poor babies. I hope Cupid’s not still scared of the dark.”
“I didn’t know he was.”
“Probably not anymore,” she said, more as if she was trying to reassure herself th
an me. “He was back when he was a calf, or at least that’s what Felix said. He’s been working with them forever.”
Again, I wondered how old the elves were. This didn’t seem like a good time to ask.
“Are you okay?” I said. “After the power going out, I mean? It seems to kind of freak everyone here out.”
She shrugged, but her face was pale under her freckles. “I guess?” she said. “I don’t know. We all just try to pretend it’s not happening, but that last one—that was for real.” She shivered a little and pulled her mug of cocoa toward her.
I scraped the last bits of salad around my plate. It was odd: When I’d first arrived at the North Pole, I’d resented the idea of going to work anywhere in the Workshop. Now, I could barely focus on my lunch because I wanted to get back to the reindeer so badly.
I was curious about the pole and anxious to speak to Felix, of course, but that wasn’t all of it. What if Cupid was still scared of the dark?
I pushed my plate away and stood up.
“I’d better get back,” I said.
Joy nodded, but she still looked frightened—as frightened as almost everyone else in the room.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said. “Santa will figure it out.”
“I know,” she said, and put on a brave smile.
I would eventually get out of here, and whatever problems Frost was causing wouldn’t affect me after I left. But this was the elves’ home. The city under the dome was their whole world.
I raced back to the stables. Felix was inside one of the stalls, eating a sandwich with one hand and massaging Blitzen on the head with the other. His face lit up with curiosity when he saw me.
“How much trouble are you in?” he said through a mouthful of sandwich.
I gave him a disapproving look, which he ignored.
“I’m not in trouble.” I leaned through the window of Dasher’s stall and scratched him on his favorite spot under his chin. “I told them everything that happened.”
He waited, then, impatiently, ordered, “Talk.”
I repeated the whole story, and then told him how on edge Santa had seemed.
“He’s not like I imagined him when I was a kid,” I said. “He’s stressed.”
“Having the fate of the world on your shoulders will do that.”
Felix scrutinized my face for a long moment with his delicate eyebrows furrowed and his mouth drawn into a tiny O.
“So they want me to tell you about the pole?”
I nodded.
“For sure, though? I mean, you’re not just making that up? They actually said to ask me?”
“Yes,” I said slowly.
He shoved the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and chewed, staring at me. I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s just not something we usually tell outsiders,” he said.
He gave Blitzen a last pat and then stepped out of the stall. He was past me and almost to the stable door before he turned around.
“Well?”
I scratched Dasher’s nose and ran to follow Felix out the door.
We ended up back in the same wing as the Christmas Eve closet where Frost had appeared to me a mere hour before. Seeing it down at the end of the hall made goosebumps prickle on my arm with remembered cold.
We didn’t go down the corridor, though. Instead, Felix led me to a small elevator set into the wall and unlocked the panel next to it with a tiny silver key.
He glanced around before pressing the button to call the elevator. I looked around too, but we were alone. This wing was as deserted as it had been before.
The elevator arrived, and its gleaming silver doors slid open. I followed him inside.
“Where are we going?”
Felix pressed a button with a many-pointed star on it, and the doors slid shut.
“Down.”
There were no floor signs or lights to indicate just how far down the elevator took us, but after a long moment, the doors opened again and we stepped out into a circular hallway that disappeared around the bend in both directions. Felix let the doors slide shut, then locked the panel again.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“Where are we?” I asked, as if he’d actually tell me if we were headed to some subterranean murder room.
He tucked the key away and crooked a finger for me to follow him.
A giant set of silver double doors led into the room in the middle of the circular hallway. This one didn’t have a place for a key, or handles. Instead, Felix held his hand up against the crack between the doors.
Electricity crackled under his hand, and the doors slid smoothly open. They fell shut behind us a moment later.
Golden lights flickered on above us and around a circular raised platform that stood in the center of the room. The platform had a gold railing.
Behind it, in the exact center of the room, was the pole.
Chapter 18
It stood upright, glinting gold and crimson, sparkling under the lights and buzzing with a power I couldn’t see but could sense in the air around us. It wasn’t large, maybe only a few feet long and slender enough that I could have wrapped my hand around it.
“That’s it.” I hadn’t meant to whisper, but there was something majestic about the small object that filled me with reverence.
Felix had no such inhibitions.
“Yep,” he said brightly, and walked toward it. I followed cautiously.
It was the only thing in the room, and it was the only thing that needed to be in the room. It rested in a Christmas tree stand with spindly golden legs. Stripes of gold and crimson spiraled up its surface, and at its top was a ball of gilded filigree. Inside the ball, light sparkled blue and red, lightning and flames dancing together.
The whole thing spun slowly, creating the illusion that the stripes were twisting up the pole like a snake.
Felix grabbed the gold railing that surrounded the platform and used it to swing himself up to stand on the platform’s edge. He hung over the railing like a kid hanging over a fence, totally unimpressed by the magical object in front of us.
“North Pole, meet Holly. Holly, meet the real North Pole.”
I stood on the floor, not daring to get closer. I imagined I could carry the pole without trouble, although I suspected the power coursing through it would be enough to knock me out.
“What is it?” I said. “I mean—why?”
“Why’s it here?”
“And what does it do? And why does he want it?”
I didn’t dare say Frost’s name here, as though doing so might magically summon him. I couldn’t stand the thought of running into him again, and the idea of him getting anywhere near this pole filled me with a dread I couldn’t put a finger on.
Felix watched the pole spin for a long moment.
“Santa’s not really here for the toys,” he finally said. “It’s not about the presents. He’s the Guardian.”
“Of the pole?”
“Of the world.”
He turned to look at me, and the surprise on my face must have delighted him, because a small dimple appeared on his cheek and his eyes twinkled.
“It’s not quite that dramatic,” he admitted, then pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Actually, no, it is. It’s dramatic. This pole is the source of Jack Frost’s power. He created it hundreds of years ago. Tried to harness the powers of ice and fire. It was a huge success and the world paid for it.”
“What happened?”
“Cold snap,” Felix said. “A lot of people died. A lot of crops failed. Frost didn’t mind. It meant he could be out in the world more. He’s a frost sprite,” he added at my confused expression. “Can’t go out where it’s warm or he’ll melt. If he can’t go out, that means he can’t exert his power over the Glims, and exerting power is kind of Frost’s thing. Some people like money, some people like quiet evenings at home, and some people just like knowing they can magically beat up everyone in a three-country radius.”
It matched what I’d seen of Frost. He hadn’t tried to magically beat me up, but he’d had me cornered, even though it was clear I’d wanted to get out. No decent person would have kept me trapped, but Frost had.
“How’d Santa get it?”
“No one knows,” Felix said. “Well, except maybe Mary, but she’s not talking. Whatever happened, the Faerie Queen ended up ordering him to protect it. He didn’t want to.”
I gave in and climbed up beside Felix so I could lean over the railing to get a better look at the pole. The lights flickering in the bulb on top seemed powerful but contained.
“Why not just keep it in Bermuda?” I said. “Or, like, anywhere near the equator?”
“It’s tied to the Arctic Circle, just like Frost. If it gets too far from the Circle or Frost, its powers will fall out of balance and it’ll—well, no one knows. Some people think it’ll explode. Some people think it’ll send the planet into an eternal winter, which is what Frost wanted it for in the first place. Or maybe its power will ricochet and send the planet into an eternal summer. And you thought global warming was bad.”
He waited for me to get his hilarious joke. I narrowed my eyes at him and he sighed.
“Only Santa and Frost know for sure,” he said. “All I know is that the pole has to stay here, which means Santa does, too.”
I let the pieces slide slowly into place in my mind. No wonder Santa had been so on edge earlier. I would be, too, if failing at my job meant the entire world was going to freeze or fry.
“That must be a lot of stress,” I said.
Felix snorted. “Understatement of the year.”
One last piece still wasn’t fitting. I watched the pole spin as I tried to figure it out, then gave up.
“What do all the toys have to do with it?”
Felix smirked. “Santa hates his job,” he said. “He’s stuck here, though. The Workshop is his attempt to do something with his life that he enjoys.”
