"There's no evidence," said Shinichi. "I can see why you need my help."

"Right. He just died from his wounds, but no one could figure out why, or how."

"Is there any way I can find any evidence?"

"If there's one thing I've learned from the old Winter Warlock, it's that you should always put one foot in front of the other," said the Snow Miser. "Soon enough with a mindset like that, you'll be walking out the door. There's only one way to solve who killed my brother."

"And how's that?"

"You'll have to take a trip back in time."

"But how can I do that!?" asked Shinichi. He then stopped and re-composed himself. "Can you, perhaps, do it with your magic?"

"I'm afraid time is excluded from my abilities, but I know someone who can help us out." The Snow Miser waved his frostbitten yet formidable hand again and they appeared outside next to the great black Arctic Sea.

"You got a boat?" asked Shinichi.

The Snow Miser laughed and looked over at Shinichi. "Oh, boats would never survive in this climate." He put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Suddenly, the water parted and a huge black shape rose out of the water. It was a whale whose tail happened to be adorned with an object in the shape of a large clock.

"I see you've got business in the Sea of Time," said the Time Whale, his tail timepiece ticking back and forth. He spoke slowly in a voice deeper than the ocean and thicker than the La Brea tar pits. "You have impeccable timing. I've just come back from the minute-minnows' spawning season and my schedule is empty. I suppose you need another favor?"

"It's not like last time, I promise," said the Snow Miser. "Nothing petty. I've got a friend here who needs to go back in time ten years to this very spot. I'm finally going to find out who killed my brother."

"I'm glad that the mystery will finally be solved. I had almost forgotten about your poor brother's untimely fate. As for your request, that's not a difficult task for me," said the Time Whale. "And I already forgave you for last time's occurrences. It's all in the past." He splashed his tail in the dark waves.

"I don't have time for time jokes." The Snow Miser crossed his arms with an even crosser look on his face.

"I do."

Shinichi sat upon the back of the Time Whale and watched as the years slowly floated past him. He could glimpse past events slipping by as they swam through the sea. It was an utterly astounding sight to be literally swimming backwards through a natural flow of events. The stream of time was almost like a never-ending road of ocean, its path slowly converging into the horizon.

Suddenly there was a shift in the whale's composure.

"What's wrong?" asked Shinichi. He had to yell over the roaring waves.

"I wish I didn't have to tell you this, but we've hit a pretty bad spot in the time stream," said the Time Whale.

"What'll happen?"

"I might not reach our destination. If our luck runs out, we may even get flung into a faraway time. I can't guarantee that we'll make it safely through this." The whale was struggling to keep itself righted on the correct time current.

"That's not good."

"No, it isn't."

Suddenly the Time Whale was hit by a huge storm wave and Shinichi was thrown off. He sunk into the waves of time, struggling to reach the surface, but it was of no avail. The Time Whale floundered about in the distance as Shinichi's vision faded to black.

Ran was recovering from the Christmas celebrations with a cold glass of orange juice with ice in it. There was no better way to pretend that Christmas was over and done with than with a drink meant for a hot summer's day.

It had been a slow morning at the Mouri Detective Agency, as everyone who had shown up for the celebration had gone home the night before, and no clients showed up at the door. Kogoro was still asleep even though it was noon, having gone out with some of his drinking buddies for a Christmas bonanza with several servings of eggnog. Shinichi had packed up and was cleaning his entire house, which he assured Ran he could do well enough by himself. What a card.

Ran kind of missed Conan's presence, but she didn't really mind that much, because it was just Shinichi after all. I mean, he was a huge jerk and all, but who can blame him?

Ran decided it was high time to go get the mail. She walked down to the mailbox and withdrew several envelopes. One of them was red with shiny gold decorations around its edges. Ran hoped it was a cool Christmas card from an old client. She brought the other letters upstairs to the office and then sat down on the couch to check out what exactly the special one contained.

The letter was sort of cold to the touch but Ran knew it had been a pretty cold day in itself so she didn't really pay attention to it. Inside was a letter requesting her father to aid the client with a mystery of sorts, but there was no return address, and there was no signature on the letter. There were more papers, though, other than the first. Ran took out and unfolded more of them, but they were blank. Then she saw a small folded square of paper and took it out. Perhaps this was some idea of a joke. She unfolded the paper and then the world around her turned white. Suddenly she was also lying two feet deep in snow.

"Well, that was pretty bizarre," said Ran.

She decided to head to the nearest thing that looked like shelter, which was a hole in a cliffside. She stepped through the doorway and found the door on the ground instead of in its rightful place with a huge dent in the middle of it. Someone had broken in. Ran decided to enter karate mode and carefully examine the rest of the place. Who would intrude upon a house (if you could call it that) in the middle of absolute nowhere? Nothing made sense, but Ran knew that considering magic was real, this wasn't really much of a surprise.

In the hall she found the Snow Miser, tall and pale, lounging in a chair made of ice reading an ancient tome. He looked over at her. "Another teenager, huh?"

"Uh, my name is Mouri Ran, and can you explain why this letter to my father took me to this bizarre place?"

"Ah, I see you accidentally opened the letter meant for him."

"So you wanted my dad to come here to your weird snow palace?"

"Exactly. I never meant any harm by it. I was hoping he would help me solve the murder of my brother, but I've already got someone else on the case."

"Someone else?"

"His name is Kudo Shinichi, and from that expression on your face, I'm going to assume you've heard of him?"

"He's my best friend."

The Snow Miser laughed in a cold but hearty way. "Ah, I see how it is. I would send you after your little lovebird, but he happens to already be investigating somewhere where you can't possibly follow."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The Snow Miser turned a frozen page of the book in his lap. "He's taken the Time Whale back to the past in order to find out who killed my brother."

"Time Whale?"

"You've never heard of a Time Whale? My, news never travels quickly from the North Pole, does it?"

"I hadn't even heard of real magic before two days ago."

"I see. Well, the Time Whale is exactly what his name states: he's a whale who can swim the streams of time itself."

"Where in time has Shinichi gone?"

"Don't worry. He's gone back to the day of my brother's death. He'll catch the criminal soon and return with him, or I'll be awful upset."

"Can I go home?"

"My magic's running low, so I can't take people that far." He snapped his fingers and then they were outside by the sea again. "However, we can wait for your friend here."

"How long will he take?"

"His journey should have taken less than a minute in our time," said the Snow Miser, "but it's been over an hour since then. I'm concerned. I hope they didn't take the wrong time current."

As if those words signaled something important, a spout appeared out of the water in the distance.
"That's him!" said the Snow Miser. "But he's underwater. Where's Kudo Shinichi?"

The Time Whale finally reached the shore and looked at the two with a sad eye. "I believe I've lost a passenger in the time storm."

"What!?" said the Snow Miser. "You lost him?"

"He was thrown off after a vicious time wave hit me. I wish it wasn't true, but I don't know where he is now, or what trouble he may have gotten himself into."

A pack of sled dogs hauling a toboggan raced across the icy lands of the north. They fought through a thick flurry of snow with all the dedication of a soulless animal. Picking out a huge snow bank, the dogs finally settled out of the way of the wind and snow and came to rest in a considerably drier location. The three humans riding along with the dogs stretched their limbs from the long ride and one of them prepared a fire.

Once the tents were put up, the three clambered into one of them, and the smallest of the them unrolled a map in the light from various flashlights.

"It looks like we should try to avoid the more watery parts up ahead," said Agasa. "I can't see why we should try for a risky run like that. We should take a detour."

"I see your point," said Ai.

The third figure tugged at the neck of his green turtleneck awkwardly. "If I may offer a word of suggestion, maybe we should take the trail that leads between these mountains. We'll get past the danger zones and it won't be that much of a time loss," said Gin.

"I don't see why not," said Agasa.

"I hope this isn't some trap to get us stranded in the vast Siberian mountains," said Ai.

"I swear I'm good now," said Gin. He crossed his heart and then did a motion of slitting his own neck. "Besides, I'd be trapping myself as well if I meant you two any harm."

"I can't believe we brought you along because you were the only one who knew about a secret Organization helicopter base in northern Siberia, and also the only one who knows how to fly a helicopter," said Ai as if she was reading off a script. She took a drink of hot chocolate out of her World's Best Sister mug.

"The more, the merrier," said Gin, with a smile that could melt the Winter Warlock's raggedy frozen beard.

"Regardless," said Agasa, "we should probably get some sleep before our next run. We're almost to the base, anyway. Once we're in the comfort of the private helicopter, we can relax."

"It may be hard to relax with the helicopter's noise," said Gin. "Good thing I brought earmuffs."