The Longest Night is a widely celebrated holiday in the Iron Kingdoms consisting of festivals and revelries with people celebrating by dressing up like the dead, drinking, and lighting off fireworks amid loud music and dancing. It is celebrated every three years at the end of the year as an extra day added to the calendar, therefore taking place after the old year and just before the new one. While the festivals are eagerly anticipated, Longest Night has an increasingly ominous reputation. Many believe this day and night to be a time of black magic and misfortune. Some say the barriers between Caen and Urcaen—the realms of the living and the dead—become thin on this day and that the spirits of the restless dead manifest to haunt and torment the living. There are some who prefer to hide in their homes and bolt their doors rather than join the masked revelers cavorting in the streets.