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 than 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.