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It must be the hunger. She had been so cold and so nervous about this strange world that she had forgotten she had not eaten in quite some time. Had it been many hours or days? How many days? It was hard to tell, since there was no dawn or dusk. Only night.

Suddenly Alexander gave a low, almost inaudible growl. He rose, the motion smooth and silent, and took two steps, putting himself between Gytha and the door.

Then a beautiful woman appeared in the doorway. She was captivating, enchanting, so beautiful it hurt to look at her, yet Gytha could not look away. Her hair was as black as night, her skin white as ice, and her lips like ripe berries. She wore a green velvet dress, low-cut and tight-waisted, with sleeves that fluttered away from her shapely white arms. Gytha’s mouth fell open.

This was a fairy queen! Gytha knew it without any doubt. No human had ever looked so regal and terrifying, so cold and sharp and dangerous, so untroubled by the deadly chill of this place. If a bear could talk, any story of magic and wonder could be true, though Gytha could not immediately recall a story of a fairy queen. Her thoughts raced.

The woman’s ebony hair was caught up in loops by a hundred pins topped with pearls and sparkling crystals, and more glittering gems adorned her neck and ears. Her bare shoulders shone pale in the lamplight.

When she caught sight of Gytha, she laughed and strode past Alexander, catching the girl’s face between her long, elegant hands.

“Oh, bear! You’ve brought me a girl! How perfectly sweet of you! She’s so beautiful!” Her laugh was like bells tinkling, a crystalline beauty that rang and glittered in the air. She caught alittle bell from her skirt and rang it, the sound less lovely than her voice. “Servants! Come! You have a task!”

Gytha blinked and tried not to recoil too obviously.

The woman pinched her cheek with one hand, and her fingers were icy cold. She turned Gytha’s face one way and then the other, and then stepped back and looked at her from head to toe. “Oh, she’s beautiful! Too skinny, of course, but that can be fixed. How marvelous! Oh, excellent work!”

The girl’s heart sank, though she could not have said exactly why. A little coil of fear twisted in her empty stomach. She tried to catch a glimpse of the bear’s face.

The bear had withdrawn to the darkest corner of the room and stood there motionless. Gytha could not read his expression; all her thought earlier of how she could see the kindness in his eyes seemed foolish. His face was impossible to read, and if he thought of anything at all, she could not tell.

The beautiful woman continued to talk, her voice like bells and her hands as strong as iron as she turned Gytha this way and that. She seemed pleasant enough, but Gytha was so exhausted that she could not keep track of what the woman was saying.

Without the bear’s warmth against her body, the room was frigid. Gytha began to shiver.

A servant slipped into the room without a sound, ducking her head as the woman gave her instructions. Wordlessly she stripped Gytha of her worn, thin clothes and pulled a long silk chemise and then a new dress over her head. All blue velvet and intricate silver embroidery, the dress was exquisite, but Gytha was too dazed to appreciate it much until she realized that it was warmer than her old clothes. At any other time she would have been amazed by its beauty, but she was so tired and cold and hungry that she could barely keep hereyes open.

She did wonder briefly whether it was strange for the bear to see her without her clothes, but when she caught a glimpse of his face, his head was on the floor and his eyes were closed. He looked asleep.

The servant was strange, and even up close, Gytha had a hard time figuring out why. It was a puzzle for another day, perhaps, because as soon as she was dressed to the queen’s satisfaction, with warm silken trousers on beneath the dress, silken stockings and sheepskin slippers on her feet, the queen whisked her down the hall to yet another hall.

Alexander heaved himself to his feet and followed, padding softly behind them. Gytha imagined he was as exhausted as she was; his steps sounded heavy and slow.

The next room was a banquet hall, with a long table and many seats. Dozens of the strange servants stood along the walls, as if there were dozens of guests, but there were none. The queen sat at the head of the table and directed Gytha to sit on her left. The bear stood in the corner, watching silently.

The servants brought the food in courses; Gytha had never eaten a meal in multiple courses other than when the soup wasn’t finished when the children were hungry and so her mother gave them bread first. This was intentional.

The food was strange to her, but delicious. Dumplings in beef broth, pastries with mushrooms and pheasant and strange herbs, and vegetables Gytha had never seen before came in succession. There were meats she couldn’t identify and cheeses unlike anything she had ever imagined.

She nearly fell asleep sitting up. With her belly full and her exhausted body finally warm, it was all she could do to pretend to pay attention. But she thought suddenly of Alexander.

“Isn’t he hungry too?” She motioned toward the bear standing silently near the door.

The woman’s laughter was like crackling ice. “Oh, no! Bears don’t eat as humans do, you know.” She waved a hand dismissively, and Alexander lowered his head.

Gytha could feel his eyes on her, unreadable.

The woman kept talking, about balls and festivals and all sorts of nonsense that Gytha assumed had little to do with her. Besides, she seemed to be having some sort of problem with her hearing. When she wasn’t intently focused on listening with her full concentration, the queen’s voice seemed to break into pieces individually beautiful but together signifying nothing. A bell-like tone, a crackle, a shriek like the wind, but no words unless Gytha tried very hard to listen to her and nothing else.

Gytha assumed this strange difficulty in deciphering the queen’s words was because she was so tired. She nearly fell asleep at the table, and finally someone, either Alexander or the queen or perhaps one of the servants, realized that she was no use at all. The servant hustled her back to her room, undressed her like a doll, and stuffed her under the covers.

The room was silent when Gytha woke except for the soft crackle of the fire. She might have slept for an hour or a week; she could not tell, other than that she was hungry again. The lamps were out save one turned down low on a nearby table.

Her old clothes were gone, but there was a neatly folded stack on an upholstered chair by the fire. She did not remember the chair being there the night before. There was a matching footstool in front of it, which she also did not recall. Had she merely been so dazed that she had not noticed the furniture, or had someone brought in furniture while she was sleeping?

What a disconcerting thought!

Gytha lay in the bed for some time, turning everything over in her mind.