I hit the floor and covered the scepter with my body as ice shards scattered across the room.

I’d done it. I didn’t know how, but through some kind of magic I would never be able to comprehend, I had told the pole what I wanted and it had obliged. I clutched it and felt myself shaking, not with cold but with a surge of too much adrenaline.

Frost shouted something, and I heard Joy screech in fear or maybe anger.

I didn’t have time to figure out what happened. I had to take advantage of the moment and run.

Frost had been knocked back against the wall from the force of the window blasting apart, and Joy was crouched over him. She looked over at me, and her skin was almost as drained as his.

I didn’t have time to feel sorry for her. I had to go.

I eyed the open doorway, but she saw what I was thinking before the thought had fully formed, and she stood up and jammed herself in the opening.

“Give it back,” she said.

She was shaking, too, but I knew I wouldn’t get past her. Not without Frost catching up to me.

There was only one way out.

I stuck my head through the window. The freezing wind whipped my hair into my face.

The sea was far down, a mass of black ink that stretched out to the horizon and washed against the stark blue-white of the shore. It was impossible to tell from this distance how much distance was between the base of the palace andto the water. I could only hope my arm was strong enough.

I couldn’t control the pole, and I couldn’t destroy it.

But I could let it slip beneath the menacing black waves. Santa wouldn’t be able to get the pole back once it disappeared, but then, neither would Frost. It was a brutal compromise, and the only one I could make.

I drew the pole back, feeling its weight and silently calculating the angle that would sail farthest through the air.

Behind me, Frost scrambled to his feet, his footsteps clumsy against the floor.

Other footsteps joined his, and Joy screamed.

“Jack, run!”

I jerked the pole forward, ready to throw—

“Stop!”

I jerked to stillness as though I’d rammed the pole into a solid brick wall. I spun around.

“Give it here,” Santa said from the doorway.

He was still dressed like a lumberjack grandpa, but a terrifying power radiated from him. Cracks formed in the ice beneath our feet with a sound like heavy trees falling.

My arm moved of its own volition, and the pole sailed through the air, above Joy’s head as she stretched to catch it, and landed firmly in Santa’s hand.

Thunder boomed throughout the palace and the flames inside the scepter burst into luminous gold.

“Holly?” Santa said, looking across the room at me.

“Yes, Santa?”

“Jump.”

At last, I didn’t have to figure out what to do next. I didn’t have to weigh the consequences of my choices. I didn’t have to fight the fear in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t even have to think.

Instead, I turned, climbed up onto the windowsill, and threw myself out of the palace and toward a streak of red hurtling below me.

Wind whistled past my ears, burning them with cold. My hair streamed out above me, and my limbs flailed as if there were anything out here to grab onto. And then I fell with a soft thump onto an enormous velvet bag crammed with something soft.

“Stuffed animals!” Felix shouted gleefully. He snapped the reins, and the reindeer in front of us zoomed ahead and up into the night sky.

I clutched the bag and shrieked, half out of terror at the sudden movement and half out of sheer relief.

I was alive.

Santa had the pole.

I was alive.

I was alive.

My skin tingled as I crawled to the front of the sleigh and pulled myself over and onto the seat. Felix pulled me in close, wrapping one arm around me and squeezing so hard I almost couldn’t breathe.

I burrowed into the squeeze. It was exactly what I needed.

“You did an awesome job,” he said.

“I’m alive.”

He looked at me and cracked up. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Yeah, you are. I’m going to do another loop here. I have a feeling the big man’s not going to take long here.”

“Does anyone call him Nick?” I said. My heart vibrated with the sheer shock of having made it out in one piece. “Aside from Mary?”

“What?”

“You call him the big man, Frost calls him the old man. He has a name.”

“Whatever,” Felix said. “He’s the man. You’re the man.”

“I’m the man!” I said.

Giddy relief floated up inside me like bubbles. I laughed. Up ahead, Blitzen glanced backward with a twitch of his dark eye.

The sleigh swept around the palace, doing one wide loop before coming up alongside the window again. Felix pulled on the reins to slow the reindeer down, but slowing down made us descend.

A head leaned out of the window, its short crop of curly dark hair dangling down towards us.

I’d never thought I could be so happy to see her.

“Go ahead and land,” Noelle called, waving a hand toward the front of the palace. “We’ve got everything handled here, but it’s going to take a minute to deal with Joy.”

“What?” Felix said. “Why would Frost be happy about this?”

“Not happiness,” I said. “Joy.”

He still looked confused.

“You’ll find out in a minute,” I said.

I nudged him and pointed toward the ground, and he brought us in for a swift landing.

It wasn’t long before Santa appeared at the doorway, Joy trudging reluctantly behind him and Noelle bringing up a stern rear. Felix stood and leaned forward to get a better look. His eyes were huge. I tugged him down.

Santa turned, the scepter flashing in his hand. It belonged there in a way that filled me with a deep sense of comfort. He leaned down, talking seriously to Joy, who folded her arms and looked up at him with a sullen expression. After a few moments, he straightened and shrugged. She walked back inside the palace and slammed the heavy doors on him and on Noelle, who glared up at him like he’d done something deeply unforgivable.

“The Workshop isn’t a prison,” I heard him call after her as she strode toward the sleigh. “I don’t have jurisdiction here.”

I quickly climbed back on top of the pile of stuffed animals, giving Noelle plenty of room. She threw herself on the bench and folded her arms, looking ahead with a dark scowl on her features.

“Hey, we just saved the pole,” Felix said, nudging her. “Lighten up.”

She turned the glare on him, and he inched toward his side of the sleigh.

“Or not,” he muttered.

Santa walked slowly toward us, then turned and faced the palace again. He held up the pole.

For a few moments, nothing happened. Then I saw the sides of the palace begin to glisten and shine. Moonlight reflected from the high walls like it was bouncing off of rippled glass, and then it all hardened again, and I saw that the entire building had been encased in a shell of hard, clear ice.

Santa trudged toward the sleigh, his heavy boots leaving prints in the snow.

“It won’t hold them forever,” he said. “We should be able to get home without being interrupted, at least.”

He climbed up into the sleigh with a grunt and settled on the bench, squishing Noelle between him and Felix. He twisted to look back at me.

“You okay back there?”

“I’m great,” I said. I flopped down on the enormous velvet bag and clung to it. “Better than great. Let’s go home.”