A Night Worth Keeping

The shower in Frost Fortress was ridiculously good.

Jill Frost stood under a cascade of icy water, letting it press against her white-and-silver fur while the steam curled around her small antlers. She had just flown three laps around Winter City at full speed — just for fun — and her legs were still buzzing.

"Perfect," she said to nobody.

The fortress was quiet tonight. Its tall walls hummed with the deep cold that kept Winter City alive, the kind of cold its people loved. Outside, arctic foxes and polar bears and snowy owls wrapped in scarves were lighting the lamp-posts one by one for the Longest Night Festival.

Jill pulled on her sparkly blue dress and fastened her cape. She leaned out the tall window, watching the lights flicker across the ice-covered rooftops.

Something felt off.

One whole block was dark. Not festival-dark. Just… dark.

The Block That Forgot the Cold

Jill pushed off the windowsill and flew toward the dark block, her cape snapping behind her in the freezing air.

Up close, it was worse than it looked from above. Every home on Glacier Row had its windows dark and its chimney cold. No smoke, no lamplight, nothing.

She landed on the front step of the corner house and knocked. A polar bear — round-faced, elderly, wrapped in two coats at once — pulled the door open. His name, she'd soon learn, was Mr. Brumble, and he was shaking.

"It just stopped," he said. "The heat. All of it. Just gone."

Jill stepped inside. The walls were ice-cold. Not regular cold — wrong cold. The kind that meant something had pulled the heat *out*.

She pressed her palm to the wall. It wasn't a burst pipe or a broken boiler. The metal of the heating vent was dry and completely empty, like it had been drained.

A low drone buzzed overhead. Outside the frosted window, a small silver shape blinked once — and vanished into the dark sky.