It had been my Magic he had been taking over those passing months. I was the reason he had been able to escape his prison. He had taken everything from me for his own, stolen what made me a Claus to escape and get revenge on my father. Without my Magic, I was just like everyone else. Normal. My last name meant nothing if I didn't have the power that was part of me, a piece of my DNA. Magic was what made a Claus, a Clause. If Papa didn't have his Magic, he wouldn't be able to fly around the world in just a night, slip down chimneys, do everything he was famous for. If Mama didn't have Magic, she wouldn't have known which children were wishing the hardest for a gift that couldn't be brought or made. Magic made us who we were.

I was without Magic and facing one of the worst enemies I could ever think of confronting. I didn't think my day could get any worse with the arrival of Jack, but it appeared that I was very much mistaken. We had no way of distracting him with my Magic gone, no way to fight him off before Papa could swoop in and save the day. We were on our own.

"What's going on?" Joel whispered, looking rather frightened by my actions, not having not understood what I was doing or why I was doing it.

"You know how you asked if there was anything I could do to distract him? I just tried, and it didn't work," I said, lowing my arm and trying to shake the trembling sensation from my fingers.

"What'd you mean it didn't work?"

"Exactly that. He's done something, blocking it somehow like he did with Mama and Papa to stop them leaving home. I couldn't help even if I wanted to."

"Ah, Mackenzie, how naïve you are. I have done nothing but take what is rightfully mine. Your Magic has not been blocked because you no longer have it, have you been paying attention to what has been happening? I know you have been watching us, listening to our conversations but did you not catch on to who we were talking about? Who we were syphoning Magic from?"

"You can't syphon Magic from anyone, it's not possible," I said. I was trying to keep myself composed, but I knew where he was heading, I just didn't want to believe it.

"That is where you are wrong. You see, it is possible to syphon a person's Magic if they no longer have any use for it. You have barely used your Magic since you left the North Pole, and therefore, you were the perfect subject for my little experiment. I used your Magic to escape my cage, to gain my freedom and you did not even notice. Human minds are so ignorant, they fail to see what is unfolding around them and you are no exception."

My head felt like it was going to explode as Jack unloaded his new information. I had known they were taking Magic from someone, after all, it was all they spoke about, but I didn't know it was me and I certainly didn't know that I was the reason they were doing it. Papa had never mentioned it before, never warned me that the less often I used my Magic, the more chance I had of losing it. I knew Magic could become dormant over time, hide deep down until it was needed, or the person remembered they had it, but I didn't know it was possible for Magic to be stolen. If I did, I never would have abandoned it for so long.

I couldn't believe that I allowed myself to fall into Jack's trap, that I was too stupid to know that it was me he was talking about. For weeks I had to listen to him and his minions go on about taking someone's Magic, using it for their own gain, but I didn't figure it out. I didn't even tell Granny. If I had, Papa would have been able to stop him before he escaped before the situation grew out of control. There were so many things I could have done, things I could have said weeks, even months before, but I didn't. Whether it was pride, ignorance or general stupidity, I didn't know. What I did know was that it was my fault, and I had to be the one to fix it if it wasn't too late.

"You won't get away with it," I said, almost growling at him. I had been annoyed at him before, frustrated that he had decided he was going to play a game with us, but after finding out I had helped him escape, I was angry.

"I think I already have. You cannot stop me, your parents cannot stop me, not even Grandparents can come riding to the rescue. To thank you for all you have done for me, I will reward you but first I must dispose of your two friends here, they serve no purpose to me and soon, no purpose to you. We cannot carry dead weight."

"Leave them alone."

"You appear to be under the impression that I am going to listen to you, Mackenzie. No matter, it is not as though you can stop me."

Jack shrugged his shoulders, mocking me. He knew there was nothing Magical I could do to stop him, but that didn't mean there wasn't something. With a flick of his wrist, Jack produced one of his infamous ice ball, a blast that would kill anyone were it to hit them directly. If it hit either Niska or Joel they would be statues within seconds, statues that could not be unfrozen. Everyone else had been frozen from the outside, the inside still working as it should, being shot with an ice blast froze everything. Every organ turned to ice, and there was no reversal. Not even Papa could undo an ice blast, no matter how hard he tried. Jack's Magic was different from ours, only similar in the way it was used.

With a wiggle of his fingers and another small wrist flick, the ice bolt flung forward, aimed directly at Niska and Joel who were standing stock still, unsure of what to do. Not even thinking, I pushed Niska on the arm, hard, causing her to stumble into Joel who took several steps to the right to recover himself before he fell over. Having had enough time to push them, I didn't count on being in the firing line, having simply pushed Niska from my position. Like most plans, that didn't work. After pushing Niska, I caught my foot on a bag that had been left abandoned on the floor when people ran from the open window.

I was standing directly in the path of the ice blast with no time to move.

I didn't even have time to turn before I felt the blast strike on the left side of my chest.

The moment I felt the cold blast strike me, I felt as though I couldn't breathe. My chest was constricted, as though someone was grabbing my lungs from my inside and twisting them, contorting them. It felt as though my body was freezing from the inside out, as I had been told would happen, but it was painful. As though I was being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles all at once. I stumbled backwards, grabbing bumping into a cupboard that was stationed behind us, glancing down at my fingers I noticed the slight blue tinge that was starting to set in, the same colour as the students who had been frozen upon Jack's arrival to the school. It spread up my fingers at an alarming rate and there was nothing I could do about it.

"Kenzie?" Joel said, taking a step towards me and lifting his arm as though he was going to touch me, but I pulled my arm away from him. If it was spreading this quickly, on slight touch would mean he'd freeze too.

"D-Don't," I replied, my teeth chattering together as the ice crept up my arm.

"What is it with your family being a family of martyrs? Nonetheless, I told you that I would reward you for your help, so I shall slow down the process, but seeing as you shall have to be disposed of eventually, I will not cure it," Jack said, flourishing his hand as though it was something he did every day. The ice that was creeping up my arm stopped, but my left hand felt remarkably numb in comparison to my right.

"Papa will stop you, you won't get away with this," I growled, cradling my left hand as the ice crept slower up my skin.

"I think I already have, Mackenzie. Your father is not coming to save you, nor is your mother or grandparents, no one is. I have spent years trapped behind bars because of your father and I finally have a chance to get revenge for the way I was treated. Did you really think I was going to allow anyone to threaten my chance of ruling the world? This is my time, my turn to do something exciting rather than wait for the occasional flurry of snow in the Winter time. There is nothing you, your little friends, or anyone can do to stop me, not now, not ever."

"You're wrong. You might have trapped Papa, but not for good, he can escape, and he will. As for me, I'm not going to let you do this, it's not right. You can't just plunge the world into a new ice age because you're annoyed at my dad. That's like not eating any Cadbury product because they made Fruit 'n Nut, it's childish. It's Papa you're mad at, not the rest of the world. Half of those you're punishing were kids when you tried the last uprising that got you locked up. You're punishing the wrong people for your own entertainment."

"Well, I have to admit that it is pretty entertaining, I did not think you had that sort of fire in you, Mackenzie. You ran from your father because of the way he treated you yet here you are standing up to big, bad Jack Frost! Using strange comparisons, no less."

I had enough of Jack. He treated the whole thing as a game, as though everyone was finding amusement in being attacked by ice blasts or threatened to be disposed of. Papa always said Jack had a dark sense of humour, finding entertainment in things others find scary or intimidating. Every film about Jack, every portrayal made him seem like a sweetheart; a misunderstood Magical being. Nothing has ever come close to the real Jack, at least not in my view.

Everything he did was because he found it fun, he didn't care about the consequences or the devastating effect it would have on the people he was hurting. His plan was to freeze everyone, so they never saw him, only suffered from frostbite, but he failed because Niska and Joel were unfrozen for reasons I didn't understand. He had exposed himself to humans. People who weren't supposed to know he existed or that Papa existed. I might have accidentally revealed my identity, but in doing so Jack had broken the number one rule of being a mythical person. A rule not even the Easter Bunny had broken, and he was pretty careless. If attempting to plunge the world into a new ice age meant he was imprisoned in a cage, then exposing his identity was worth a far powerful punishment. I just wished I knew what it was.

Despite not knowing how Jack was going to be punished for his latest series of offences, I knew I couldn't just let him take over. My Magic might not have been working, but Jack was a pretty good talker. If I could get him to talk long enough for Papa to arrive then we'd be safe. Only I didn't know how long it was going to take for Papa to get away, and I didn't think I had several hours of conversation topics in me. I needed my Magic, but I didn't have it. The one thing that could have slowed Jack down was gone and it was all my fault. We had no defence against him, and if we didn't have the defence, then Papa didn't stand a chance. There was no way around it, we were doomed.

"What'd we do?" Joel whispered, leaning over slightly. I don't know why he whispered, Jack could hear us.

"I have no idea," I replied, glancing down at my arm. The ice had crept further up my forearm and was millimetres away from my elbow. My fingers were stiff, and I was struggling to move them.

"The pendant," Niska added in, as though she had been struck by lightning.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Your mum said it could help. Try and open it!"

"I doubt it's going to do anything, Nisk."

"Can't help to try. Like Joel said, it's better to have something than nothing."

"Fine."

To be honest, I had forgotten about the pendant, again. There was so much going on with Jack and what he was saying that the idea of using the pendant slipped from my mind. I didn't know how the pendant could be of much help considering it was an inanimate object that probably contained nothing whilst Jack was a terrifying being. In truth, I thought the entire thing was insane. This coming from a girl who grew up in the North Pole and whose Father just happened to be Santa Claus. There is nothing more insane than that, but the idea of using a pendant against Jack Frost was about to tip the scale over.

Nevertheless, I figured it was worth a try. With my free hand, I attempted to pry open the pendant to see what, if anything, was hiding inside of it. Unfortunately, with one hand and the pendants repeated need to stay shut, it was almost impossible. If I had a crowbar, I wouldn't be able to open it. It just wasn't going to budge no matter how hard I tried. Honestly, I knew it was going to be a long shot, but the pendant was the last thing we had to get rid of Jack and that didn't appear to be working the way we wanted it to. We were out of options, and if I'm being honest, out of luck. There was only so long Jack would stand around watching a person before he got bored and he had reached that threshold.

"If you have quite finished, I have some business I need to attend to," Jack said, flexing his fingers.

"Just a second," I said.

"No, not just a second now."

"Wow, you're an impatient Irvine, aren't you? If I'm going to end up as an ice sculpture, I want to know what's tucked up in this little thing, but I can't open it. Just let me open it and then you go back to your world destruction thingy, or whatever your plan may be."

"You are infuriating, Miss Claus."

"Thanks."

"What're you doin'?" Joel asked, nudging me in the side to get me to look up from the pendant long enough for a conversation, or to explain myself.

"Stalling. I still can't get this stupid thing open."

"If it' a Claus thing, maybe it has somethin' to do with your Magic? Do you have any weird Magical laws that might help?"

"That's not a bad idea. Thanks."

For once, Joel was right. Magical law was complicated. In fact, it was one of the most complicated things in existence, even worse than changing the clock on an oven. There were so many different rules and regulations that it was impossible to keep up with all of them, so it makes sense for one or two to be forgotten over time. With me, I forgot everything. Even the most important rules were forgotten and since I hadn't used Magic in so long, most of the laws weren't ingrained into my psyche. The question was, which one did I need to open the pendant?

Answer: The most obvious law of them all.

You have to believe it, to see it.

It may sound childish, even trivial, but, it was the truth. I had mislaid my Magic because I didn't use it, in a way, I had stopped believing. I couldn't open the pendant because my Magic was useless. It's all so the reason I couldn't open it after leaving home. For whatever reason, my Magic slowed down considerably because I was moving away from it, becoming normal so to speak. Sounds insane, or downright ludicrous, but it was the truth. All I had to do to open it, was believe in the Magic that was a part of me. Believe in that little tiny thing that made me, me. Easier said than done.

Taking a deep breath, a shut my eyes and focused on the Magic. The star trick Mama did every year to decorate the living room, the sight of a singular snowflake drifting to the ground right before a big snowstorm. Even the way the light danced on the pond out the back of the workshop in those brief few weeks when it wasn't frozen over. Magic came in everything, even the beauty of a sunset classed as a form of Magic. I had forgotten so much about it all because I was so focused on my work. Making the decision about my life, school work, the Drama project, everything took centre stage. I didn't have the time I needed to breathe, to look at life as it should be looked at. I neglected it.

I suppose, everyone does. A person can get so wrapped up in their own mind, in everything unfolding in their life they forget what's really important. You lose focus, you lose who you are, a sense of yourself. That's why I lost my Magic. I could blame Jack as much as I wanted since he had taken it directly, but the true blame lay with myself. From the moment I left the North Pole, my Magic started to fade, I was just too wrapped up in my own little world to notice it. Blaming everyone else for my own failings was the reason I was in the sticky situation. I was the one who had to find my way out of it.

I focused on the small instances of Magic I missed out on since I left home, the small things that didn't mean much to most people but meant something to me. Flashes of images went through my mind as I fiddled with the clasp on the pendant, hoping it wasn't all for nothing. Using my non-frozen hand, I struggled against the clasp, keeping my eyes shut. The longer I struggled with the clasp, the less I thought it was going to work. Nonetheless, I persisted and after several minutes of struggling, the clasp popped open.

"You did it!" Joel exclaimed, nudging me in the side for a second time in order to snap me out of my daydream.

"Please let it have some effect," Niska muttered.

"Let's hope," I said, opening my eyes and looking at the pendant which lay open in my hand.

"Your big plan to defeat me is a pendant? I had high hopes for you Mackenzie, you showed promise or at least some ingenuity and yet your big plan is a pendant?" Jack said, raising an eyebrow. He looked like Grandpa when he was being smug about something.

"Yeah, I didn't think it was going to achieve anything, either."

"Well, now that you have gotten that stupid thing open, I can continue with my plan. First, your friends. I have dragged this out for far too long, no doubt that was the plan from the beginning, but I will not put this off any longer, Mackenzie, no matter what you may have planned."

As Jack continued his little monologue, something evil villains appeared to have a habit of doing despite the importance of time in a scenario, I fiddled with the pendant, running my fingers along the inside of the heart in an attempt to figure out the importance it held. I thought that when I opened it something dramatic would happen, something to trap Jack and unfreeze the world. Only when I opened it, nothing happened. It was just a plain pendant that held no other importance other than being a family heirloom. Our last chance to defeat Jack was pointless.

Or I thought it was.

Whilst Jack continued to monologue, the pendant in my hand started to arm up, the metal growing warmer and warmer with every passing second. It looked as though it was glowing, but I refused to let go of it, even though it was starting to burn my skin. The inside of the pendant, the part I had been trying to get to for so long, started to glow. A bright white light started off small, a minuscule dot in the centre of one half, before it started to grow, eventually encasing the pendant in the warm glow. I held onto the pendant despite the glow, despite the pain it was causing as the shape was burnt into my skin.

As the glow got stronger, I felt a strange tingling sensation travelling up my arm, spreading through my entire body. It felt as though I had been struck by a bolt of lightning, only the tingling sensation was familiar. It was the same sensation I got when I used my Magic. As the sensation grew stronger, I felt the fingers on my left hand becoming free, the ice-blue colour fading from my skin, leaving no trace of its existence.

I felt stronger.

It was like a rush of energy all at once.

I could take Jack Frost down.

"What just happened?" Joel asked, looking at me with wide-eyed confusion. Both he and Niska had no idea what had happened, all they saw was the red mark forming on my skin and the slight glow from the heat coming off the pendant.

"I think I have a solution to our annoying little problem," I said, raising an eyebrow. I sealed the pendant with a snap and turned to look at Jack.

"Have you quite finished? I must admit, that was a nice little Magic trick. I do not think I have ever seen a pendant with a light bulb in it, especially one that powerful. It looks as though I have slowed down your ice burn a little too much, oh well, I can fix that, just hold still would you?" Jack said, rubbing his freakishly long hands together.

"I don't think so, Jack. Like I said before, you won't be getting away with this, not now, not ever. My father might not be here to stop you, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try."

"And what are you going to do, Mackenzie? Talk me to death?"

"Ha-ha. Seeing as all you've done is chase us around the school and fail to freeze me, I'd say that was a sure possibility. You talk big, have all the right threats but haven't carried any of them out. I mean, if Papa escaped it would have been down to you and your incessant need to talk and explain every little thing you do before you do it, or not do it."

"Enough of this! I am done with you and your antics. You cannot do anything to stop me and neither can your father. Perhaps slowing down the freezing process was a bad idea, I should just dispose of you all now, it is not as if you can do anything about it, is it?"

"Go right ahead, I've had enough of your voice as it is. Maybe I won't be able to hear you if I'm frozen."

Knowing I wound him up completely, I prepared myself for what to come, though Niska and Joel looked terrified and I couldn't blame them. In front of us, Jack shook his hands up, glared at us and shot his hand out, palm first. A ball of ice came shooting from his hand towards us at a speed I had never seen from before. Reacting quickly, I copied his actions and stuck my hand out in front of me, rather than having an ice ball shoot out of my finger, Jack's ice ball exploded into glass shards and shattered to the ground. I lowered my arm and looked at Jack with a raised eyebrow, mocking him.

Narrowing his eyes at me, Jack shot a series of ice balls at me in quick succession watching as they all came hurtling towards me but were quickly swiped into shards of glass abandoned at my feet. It didn't matter how many ice balls he shot in my direction, whether he slowed them down, sped them up or shot multiple in quick succession, all of them ended up in a pile on the floor, destroyed as though they were nothing but mirrors. Jack was running out of ideas. If the ice balls couldn't make a dent when he was going to try something bigger and better and I was going to be ready for when that happened, something that happened sooner then I thought it would.

Jack looked at me, his lips curved up in a snarl. He dropped his arm and let it lay at his side for a second, flexing his fingers as he always did before he hurled some ice Magic his way. It was almost like he was psyching himself up in case it didn't work the way he wanted to, and he had a backup plan ready were that to be the case. I watched and waited for him to respond, mocking checking a watch I wasn't wearing just so I could wind him up a step further. I suppose winding up a man with ice powers wasn't the smartest move I had ever had, but it was worth it just for the look on his face.

Several seconds later, Jack stuck his hands out in front him as though he was about to use the force, his palms facing us. He twitched his fingers slightly and out of both hands shot a stream of ice and snow, like a mini-storm being conjured up in the very room we were standing in. I took a breath and kept my right arm up, palm out, focusing on a shield to protect us from the onslaught of ice and snow. As the ice and snow hit the shield, it built up in a ball, almost like a storm cloud that was swirling around, creating a strong, bitter wind. The more Jack fired at us, the bigger the ball got until I felt there was enough of a mass to push back at Jack.

I pulled my right arm back slightly, the collection of ice and snow coming with it, before pushing it forward with a scream, focusing on the ice. The ice shot forward, encircling Jack in a hail of snow and ice, trapping him in a continual swirl of white that surrounded his body. He was trapped in his own snow storm with no escape, no matter how hard he tried. I focused all my energy on the swirl of ice and snow, feeling the Magic and energy course through my veins. The longer I held it, the weaker I became and the harder it was to hold the temporary prison where Jack was trapped.

"You've got this!" Joel yelled over the noise. He rested his hand on my shoulder in a reassuring way and I felt a new rage of energy course through me.

"Come on, Kenzie!" Niska said, her eyes flickering from me to Jack who was trying to find a way out of a problem he had created.

With their words of reassurance, I held on to the storm, manipulating it ever so slightly so that Jack continued to get beaten in the face by the snow and ice that were part of him. It was a work of karma, being attacked by the very thing he was almost made out of. It was almost laughable. As I focused my energy, my arms started to shake, and I didn't think I could hold onto it for much longer, it was taking what little energy I had away, and I needed that. It took everything within me not to pull away, to fall to the ground and let Jack win. Only I didn't want to be the reason Jack took over the world.

"I think I can take it from here, Mackenzie," a voice said to the left of me. I turned my head, surprised to be spoken to by a person who definitely wasn't there when the whole debacle started. To my surprise, standing to my left was Papa, having just appeared out of nowhere to help.

"Thank God," I said, lowing my arms and stumbling backwards as the sea of snow and ice fell to the ground, revealing a very dishevelled Jack Frost.

"It's over Jack. You're going to be locked away with no chance of escape and no chance of playing the same trick you have played today. You're done here, for good."

"This isn't over!" Jack bellowed, getting ready to strike again.

"I think it is," Papa said, silencing him once and for all.

For the first time in about an hour, I was able to relax, and relaxation was something I needed. 

~~~

A/N - Alrighty! Here we are folks, Chapter Thirty-Three! Just three more chapters to go (it was going to be 2, but this one was longer than I anticipated so we get to gain a chapter! 

What did you think about the pendant? Did you guess that it might have held some importance for Kenzie? What about Jack and his sneaky tricks? And Papa coming in to save the day! What a hero!

Comment below and don't forget to vote!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to Tima_R who has an AMAZING book called 'The Mark of Aether'. I seriously love it and I know you guys will too!

First Published - April 26th, 2018