I pulled my phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of Vixen’s adorable face. She was the smallest of the reindeer, and had beautiful eyes that highlighted her curiosity about everything.

My phone didn’t get any kind of signal here, of course, so it had turned into a glorified camera. The elves insisted there was internet here, but when I’d tried to get onto it, I’d learned it was actually a “sister technology” called the JinxNet that was totally incompatible with my device.

There wasn’t much do to on the internet, anyway. What was I going to do, upload selfies of me and Santa frolicking around the Workshop? I’d be carted off for intensive therapy when I got home.

If I got home.

I shoved my phone back in my pocket and gathered an armful of alfalfa from the collapsed hay bales in a large corner trough. I dumped the armload into Donner’s stall. The hay landed on the stall floor, sending up a furry of pale green dust.

Donner snorted, pawed the hay, and started gobbling it up without looking at me.

“You’re a pig,” I told him, which didn’t disturb him in the slightest.

I patted Rudolph’s nose as I passed his stall. His nose was red, but it wasn’t bulbous like a clown’s, the way I’d always seen it in pictures. I’d been surprised to discover that he looked pretty ordinary, aside from the way the hair on his snout faded to a warm russet color.

“It doesn’t glow or anything, either,” Felix had told me a few days ago while we’d been mucking out the stalls. “Dude’s just got a really good sense of direction and doesn’t seem to rely on visual landmarks. He’s gotten the team through more than a few blizzards.”

The reindeer had just come in from a morning of running around and playing in their large outdoor enclosure, and now they were happy to be stuffing their faces with hay and moss. Prancer had already finished his lunch and was starting to get sleepy-eyed. I massaged him between the antlers.

“It’s okay, you can sleep.” I kissed his nose, and he chuffed at me in response.

I wished I could take them back to Colorado with me. Even dealing with rich tourists all day wouldn’t be so bad if I had one of these guys to come home to.

The thought of trying to cram a pet reindeer into my apartment made me chuckle.

“What’s so funny?” Felix asked, popping up from where he’d been washing out brushes in a tub of soapy water. He had on enormous neon green headphones, which I’d assumed had been playing music at full blast, which seemed to be the way Felix preferred it. Whatever he’d been listening to clearly hadn’t been loud enough to block me out, though. Or maybe he just had a sixth sense for laughter. It wouldn’t have surprised me.

“Nothing,” I said. I dusted off my hands. “I’m about done here. You coming for lunch?”

He held up a soapy rubber brush. “Almost. Listen, would you do me a favor before we go for food?”

“Maybe.”

“We’re still operating as if Santa’s going to get out of here on time,” Felix said. His resolute expression was at odds with the neon headphones. “Which means it’s time to get the Christmas harnesses out of storage. Would you mind? They’re over in the wing to the right of House of Claus, first floor at the end of the hall. Room 1224.”

“Why so far away?”

“It’s kept with the Christmas Eve stuff, not the reindeer stuff,” Felix said. “Santa’s suit and boots are in there, too, but don’t touch them or Mary will have your head.”

He tossed me a key from the ring on his belt. The key was heavy brass and looked ancient. I slipped it in my pocket.

“Noted.”

I reached into Rudolph’s stall and tried to give him one last pat, but he was focused on his food and too far away for me to reach.

I cut through the central workshop like Noelle had the first time she’d brought me to the stables. That had only been a week or so ago, but it felt like longer. Working with the reindeer was the best part of every day, and it felt like I’d known them forever.

I came out on the other side of the workshop and found the wing Felix had mentioned. This hall was as long as the others, but quieter. No elves rushed around here; in fact, the whole wing seemed almost empty.

I found the room and tried the door. Locked, of course. I slid the key into the lock and had to wiggle its heavy weight around to get the door to swing open.

The room inside was dark and cool and had the dusty, upholstered smell of a neglected closet. I felt around for a light switch, but before my hand found one, a small chandelier overhead brightened slowly and illuminated the space with a soft golden glow.

A wardrobe was up against one wall, its wooden surface carved with an elaborate depiction of reindeer flying across a starry sky.

I pulled it open. Santa’s suit hung there, the velvet thick and the color a deep, almost living red. I’d seen Santa costumes before at the mall and in holiday movies, but they were nothing to the richness of this suit. The fur that trimmed the collar and hems was soft and inviting, and I clenched my hand on the wardrobe door to stop myself from petting it. His boots gleamed on the floor below, coal black and polished to a gleam that reflected the light in the room.

Cautiously, slowly, I closed the wardrobe. There was another polished cupboard on the other side of the small room, this one carved with snowflakes and pine trees. I opened it and a rich leather smell filled the air.

Nine beautiful harnesses hung from hooks on the back wall. They were made of embossed leather and intricately woven fabric. I lifted one down from its peg and examined it. Each harness had a different pattern woven into the material, of snowflakes or pinecones or holly leaves. This one was covered in tiny poinsettia flowers. A small brass nameplate on the harness said Vixen.

It was heavy. I might have to make two trips. I lifted a second harness down and tried to figure out how to hang them on my arm in the most efficient way possible.

The lights went out.

I sighed and waved my unburdened arm through the air. Even in Santa’s magical Workshop, motion sensor lights were crap.

Nothing happened. I jumped and waved my arms. Still nothing.

The door had swung shut behind me, and I could barely see a hint of daylight underneath the crack beneath. I held my hand out in front of me and moved cautiously toward the door, then leapt back.

The room felt as though someone had opened a door to the outdoors—not the mild, charmed outdoors within Santa’s reach, but the real outdoors beyond that, the freezing, punishing, dangerous world of night and ice.

A thin blue flame flickered into being in front of me.

I screamed, leapt backwards, and slammed into the wall. The harnesses tumbled from my grasp. My arms shook from the cold and my teeth started to chatter.

The blue flame was moving. It grew and shifted into the form of an icy, translucent man standing between me and the door.

Part of my mind thought this had to be some kind of sick practical joke. The other part of me screamed in silent terror, because I’d met a lot of elves in the past month and not one of those optimistic Christmas-lovers would be capable of scaring someone like this. Not even Noelle would think this was funny.

I stared back at the man. He had a narrow face with thick white hair and a white goatee, and his figure was lean and well-dressed in a slim-cut suit with the top few shirt buttons undone beneath the jacket. His eyes were piercing, and so pale blue I could have been staring right through him and to an iceberg reflecting the light of the moon.

“I heard you were looking for me,” the apparition said. His voice was as solid as his body was insubstantial, and it sent a chill down my already freezing spine.

I thought of screaming, but I’d already screamed and no one had come running. If this was who I thought it was, the elves were all panicking right where they stood, or deluding themselves that another power outage didn’t mean the worst.

“Prince Frost,” I said.

He nodded, slowly, his thin body almost dipping into a bow.

“I understand you’re trying to get home.”

I rubbed my arms, which did nothing to warm or soothe me. I eyed the door, but there was no way to reach it without going right through him.

“Santa’s going to take me home when he can,” I said. “There’s no rush.”

He smiled, as though this was fine and not at all a wrench in his plans—and he had plans, I was sure of that. Cold calculations were written all over his shimmering, ghostly face.

“Let me out,” I said.

His delicate eyebrows furrowed.

“I just want to talk.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“I think we do.”

His image grew sharper around the edges. I glanced at the floor, looking for something I could throw. But the harnesses were the only loose thing in the room, and I couldn’t imagine them doing much damage to an elf, let alone this tall, powerful man.

“Hear me out, Miss North,” he said. Then he laughed softly, as if surprised. The sound made the goosebumps on my arms harden to tiny points of pain. “I do like that name,” he said. “Miss North, I’d be happy to take you home at your earliest convenience. All I need is for you to help me get my pole back. That’s simple enough, isn’t it?”

“You already have the North Pole. That’s what everyone told me. Everything except the Workshop and city.”

“Not the North Pole,” he said, a fine line appearing between his eyebrows. “The pole.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I looked around for an escape, as if one might have magically appeared in the last two seconds.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Miss North,” he said, his expression wounded. “Heavens, I only want to see you safely home. I can’t imagine being in the old man’s wonderland is much of a treat for a sane person like you.”

“I’m not going to help you give the Humdrums oil,” I said. “Letting them into the North Pole would be a disaster for everyone here.”

And, in spite of myself, I wanted to protect that everyone.

I imagined what Joy’s face must look like right now, frightened of the power outage on top of all her sleigh and Christmas worries.

Frost laughed in earnest this time. “The oil? Goodness, no, I have no intention of letting Humdrums anywhere near that oil if I don’t have to. It’s just a bargaining chip. I want the pole, and Santa wants his Workshop to continue churning along in peace. It’s a simple enough compromise.”

“What pole?” I said.

The lights flickered on overhead for a brief moment, barely long enough to register before they died again.

Fear crossed Frost’s face. He fixed his iceberg eyes on me.

“Bring me the pole,” he said. “You bring me the pole or I’ll come get it, and I assure you, Miss North: You wouldn’t like that.”

The lights turned on with an abrupt hum of electricity, and Frost was gone.