The blizzard hit before Hennry found a single animal, and every one of them was still out in it. He was seven, small in his brown overalls, and he had made a promise. Someday he would run a rescue center for the tundra's magic animals. His friends would come and adopt them. But a promise meant nothing tonight, with snow filling the sky and cold creatures hiding somewhere in the white. He spotted the cabin first. Vines wrapped its wooden walls, still green under the frost, and warm light glowed in its two windows. Hennry ran to the little porch and pushed the door. It swung open. Inside was dry and quiet. He had a shelter. Now he needed the animals. He left the door open a crack and went back into the storm. The first creature he found was tiny. A dragon no bigger than his two hands sat shivering behind a snowdrift. Its scales shimmered pink and purple and blue, even in the gray light. Hennry knelt down slow. "Come here," he said. "I've got a warm place. I promise." The little dragon looked at him. Then it climbed into his cupped hands and pressed against his chest. Hennry carried it inside and set it by the fire. It uncurled its wings and looked up at him, and it did not fly away. It stayed. His first rescue. He went out again and again. Each trip he found another animal lost in the snow, and each time he carried it back to the cabin. A furred creature with frost on its whiskers. A bird with feathers like ice. He counted them as he worked, the way his heart told him to. By the time the storm faded, the cabin held nine animals, warm and safe by the fire. Hennry closed the door and leaned against it. His overalls dripped. Every animal he had found was inside. He had done it. He had a shelter full of rescued creatures, exactly the thing he had dreamed of. Then the small dragon lifted its head and made a low sound. The furred creature answered it. The ice bird flapped hard against a window. All nine animals grew loud at once, and Hennry understood. They were hungry, and they were crowded, and this cabin was only one room. He looked at the shelves. Empty. He looked at the door, still rattling from the wind. He had saved them from the cold. Now he had to feed them and hold them together, and he had nothing to give and no room to grow. The rescue he wanted was starting, and it was already too small.