The frost did not sit on the glass. It ate it.

It was a slow, grinding consumption. The pane of the attic window, once clear and cool to the touch, had become a lattice of white veins. They pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light, like the circulation in a corpse that refused to stop breathing. Elias Thorne watched them. He sat in the corner, his back against the sloping roof beam, his knees drawn up to his chest. He was a clerk. A man of ledgers and ink. He knew the weight of a signature. He knew the smell of damp paper. He did not know the taste of ice.

He had come here to find his brother, Julian.

Julian was not here. Julian was in the wall.

The house was old. Older than the family. The stones were thick enough to hide a secret, thick enough to hold a breath. Elias had inherited the deed. He had inherited the silence. And he had inherited the frost.

It began three days ago. A shiver in the air that smelled of mint and rot. Then the cracks. They started in the center of the pane. They spread outward. Not from the cold outside, but from within. Elias had tried to wash it away. The water turned to slush before it touched the glass. The slush turned to stone. The stone turned to light.

He had called the village. No one came.

He had written to the lawyer in town. The letter had not arrived. Or perhaps it had, and had been turned to ash in the fire. The fire was the only warm thing left. It burned in the grate below, but it did not heat the room. It only illuminated the frost. It made the white veins glow brighter. It made them look like roots. Like the roots of a tree growing out of the earth, up into the sky.

Elias was a man of facts. He believed in the balance of the books. In the equality of debt and credit. But the frost did not balance. It consumed. It took the light from the sun and kept it. It took the heat from the fire and stored it. It was a thief. A god.

He looked at his hands. They were trembling. His fingers were stiff, locked in the shape of a prayer he no longer believed in. He thought of Julian. Julian had always been the one to look up. Julian had been the one to read the stars. Elias had read the land. Julian had read the sky.

"Julian?" Elias whispered.

The voice did not echo. It was swallowed by the frost.

The window was no longer a window. It was a mirror.

Elias leaned forward. His face was inches from the glass. He could see himself. But the reflection was not his. The reflection was younger. The reflection was Julian.

Julian was smiling.

The smile was wide. It was too wide. It stretched the skin over the bone. The eyes were black. Not brown. Not gray. Black. Void.

"Look," Julian said. The voice came from the glass. It was the sound of ice cracking.

Elias pulled back. His heart hammered against his ribs. He looked around the room. The shadows were deep. The furniture was covered in white. The bed was a block of ice. The chair was a sculpture of frost.

He had to leave. He had to get out of the house. He stood up. His legs were heavy. They felt like they were filled with lead. Or ice.

He walked to the door. The handle was cold. He turned it. It did not move. He pushed. The wood was solid. It was not wood anymore. It was ice.

He kicked it. The sound was dull. A thud. A wet thud.

He kicked it again.

The door did not break.

He turned back to the window. Julian was still there. Still smiling.

"You can't leave," Julian said. "You have to understand."

"Understand what?" Elias shouted.

"About the house."

Elias stared at the glass. He remembered the day he had bought the house. He remembered the realtor. The realtor had been an old man. He had looked at Elias with pity.

"It has a history," the realtor had said. "It is a house of knowledge."

Elias had laughed. He had thought it was a metaphor. A poetic way to say the books were good.

It was not a metaphor.

The house was alive. The house was hungry. It fed on understanding. It fed on the minds of those who lived in it. It took their thoughts and turned them into frost. It took their memories and turned them into ice.

Elias looked at his hands again. He could see the veins in his wrists. They were blue. They were turning white.

He felt a coldness in his head. It was a sharp, bright cold. It was like biting into a lemon. Like the sting of vinegar.

He tried to remember his mother's face.

He could not.

He tried to remember the taste of bread.

He could not.

He tried to remember the name of his first love.

He could not.

The frost was in his mind. It was eating his memories. It was eating his self.

He looked at Julian in the glass. Julian was no longer smiling. Julian was weeping. The tears were frozen on his cheeks. They were diamonds. They were traps.

"I'm sorry," Julian said.

"I know," Elias said.

The voice was not his. It was the voice of the house. It was the voice of the frost.

Elias closed his eyes. He tried to hold onto something. Anything. A name. A face. A feeling.

He held onto the fear.

The fear was warm. The fear was human. The fear was real.

He opened his eyes.

The window was gone.

The wall was bare stone.

Julian was gone.

Elias was alone.

He was standing in the middle of the room. The fire was out. The ashes were cold.

He looked at his hands. They were normal. They were flesh and blood.

He looked at the window frame. The glass was there. It was clear. It was clean.

But the frost was not on the glass.

The frost was inside him.

He could feel it in his chest. It was a block of ice. It was growing. It was spreading.

He looked at the door. It was open.

The night was dark. The stars were out.

Elias walked to the door. He stepped out.

The air was cold. It was not the cold of the house. It was the cold of the world. It was a clean cold. A clear cold.

He looked back at the house. The lights were on in the attic.

He could see a figure in the window.

The figure was waving.

Elias did not wave back.

He turned away.

He walked into the dark.

He did not look back.

He knew what he was.

He knew what he had become.

He was the frost.

And the frost was hungry.