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In the morning, the shirt and trousers were neatly folded again, but not how Gytha had left them. She must have slept through the stranger’s visit entirely.

Well. That was something. It was a strange thought, but she must have felt safe enough to not be on tenterhooks while she waited for him to enter.

Now that the pajamas were finished, she felt it reasonable to give her eyes a rest from the close work. She read one of the books for a time, but she found it difficult to focus; the stories made little sense, and there were many words she had never learned.

By now she had added many small flowers to her sampler and explored all the rooms she could find.Neither of the servants spoke to her, and she had been too shy to press them much.

After nearly two months in this place, she felt bolder. The queen, with her flashing eyes and pointed teeth, had not come again, and Gytha was glad of it. The two ice goblin servants seemed to be the only ones in this place, aside from the bear and herself.

Having made her decision, she strode down the hall with Magni behind her. She entered the kitchen and found the woman crushing spices in a mortar and pestle.

“May I help you?” Gytha asked, smiling.

The woman’s gray eyes widened and she looked at Magni and then back at the girl. She pressed her gray lips together.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Gytha said, when the woman still hesitated. “But I know how to make bread and soup and other things. But you’ve made many things I’ve never learned. I’d like to learn from you.”

The woman’s eyes focused on Magni again, and they seemed to be having a whole conversation without saying a word. At last the woman gave a tiny shrug.

She pulled an empty bowl from a cabinet and put flour, oil, a scoop of sourdough starter, and salt into a bowl without measuring and pushed it toward Gytha. She pantomimed squishing the mixture with her hands. Soon she took the bowl from Gytha and put a cutting board in front of her, with a pile of fresh herbs cut from a little line of pots on a shelf in the corner. Despite the lack of natural light, the herbs looked healthy. Gytha could not identify them all, but she recognized chives, sorrel, and parsley.

Under the woman’s silent but agreeable instruction, Gytha put some of the herbs into the bread dough and formed it into a round loaf, while other herbs went into a pot of bubbling soup. Magni looked on with a strange, tense expression. Thebread was apparently for dinner, because the woman left it rising and began to prepare a tray for Gytha’s lunch.

When the tray was ready, the woman pointed her out the door, and Magni carried the tray for her as they went back to her bed chamber.

“Thank you!”

It was her birthday, and there was no one to tell.

Month by month, more flowers were added to her sampler. She embroidered every flower she could remember from the world above ground, and when she had exhausted her memory, she created new and extraordinary flowers, great pink frilly things, tiny yellow bonnets, deep blue cups with bright scarlet centers, and even more fantastical shapes.

She spent the rest of her time on the embroidered collar to sell, but eventually she finished that, too.

When she clipped the last bits of thread from the collar and put it aside, she picked up another piece of cloth.

No. She needed a walk, some exercise of body and mind, something different to look at. Again she explored all the rooms, examining each tapestry in turn. The images were strange. One depicted a tall palace made of ice or crystal, and a crowd of ice goblins kneeling with their faces to the icy ground while a tall figure stood on the sweeping steps with arms raised. The standing figure might have been the queen Gytha had met, or perhaps some past queen; the intricate weaving did not have enough detail to identify individuals. Gytha found the image disquieting, and she turned to Magni.

“Is this the queen?”

He gave a short, sharp nod.

“Is she a good queen?” Gytha tilted her head and tried to read his expression.

His lips gave what was probably supposed to be his closed-mouth smile, but there was a strange light in his eyes that made it seem more like a grimace. He shrugged one shoulder.

Gytha sighed. She walked laps around the great, empty hall she had seen first until her calves burned and her feet were sore. Magni followed her at first, until she told him she was just going in circles, and then he stood in the middle of the room and watched her.

For well over two weeks Alexander had been nowhere to be seen. Gytha entertained herself by doing as much physical exercise as she could endure. She ran from one end of the great hall to the other until she was out of breath, and then tried to stand on her hands balanced against the wall. Her muscles burned from the exertion, and she relished the burn because it felt like strength finally returning to her limbs. Perhaps her body was weak, but the combination of good meals and exercise made her feel stronger by the day. Not that she had any real idea how to prepare her body for a physical challenge. She knew only that the exercise felt like it was doing her good by working out the last of the exhaustion of illness. When she went to sleep at night, she slept deeply and well.

Magni watched her activity without a word.

One day she ran laps around the great hall, and when she became too tired, she walked backwards. Then she turned around and began to walk, thoroughly tired and bored. Just at the moment when she decided she could not walk another step, the great bear stalked into the room.

“Where have you been?” Gytha asked. She crossed to him and put her hand out, but hesitated when he made a strange, growling noisein his throat.

She stared at him, and he lowered his head and turned away. But he didn’t walk away; he just stood there with his head down.

“Don’t be grumpy at me,” she said at last. “Where have you been?”