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“Yes.” Gytha took a slow step forward. “Put these on. I’m sorry they’re not better, but I didn’t have much time.”

He reached for the clothes, moving carefully, and Gytha wasn’t sure if he was trying not to frighten her, or if he were frightenedofher. He took off his boots and stood with his worn socks on the floor of ice, and she thought suddenly that he looked nothing at all like the great bear she had known. Of course his body was different, but the look in his eyes was also quite different.

He pulled on the thick, shapeless trousers over his old ones and stuck his feet back into his boots. He pulled thedrawstring tight on his thin waist with trembling fingers. The coat was more like an enormous shirt with sleeves, for there was no opening in the front, and he had to pull it over his head. He accepted the belt and tied it around his waist and then tightened the straps on each wrist.

“You can have my gloves,” Gytha said at last. “My coat has pockets, and I didn’t have time to make pockets for you.”

He looked up at her with a strange expression. “Why would you offer that?” He sounded absolutely mystified.

For a moment, Gytha was at a loss. How much of the past year did he remember at all? How much of his time as a bear did he remember? Did he even know where he was?

He straightened, still shivering. “Why are you here?”

“To rescue you.”

His mouth dropped open. “What? Why?” He put his head in his hands, and his long, messy curls hid his fingers. “I’m sorry.” He shivered so violently he staggered a little.

Gytha’s heart twisted with a strange sense of protective anger. “Sit down. You must be exhausted.”

She reached for his arm, and he flinched.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and there was such a weight of weariness and despair in his voice that tears sprang to Gytha’s eyes.

“Sit down,” she said again. There was a table, but there were no chairs, so she retrieved the blankets and spread one on the ice floor. She sat the lantern down and put the plate of raw meat beside it.

After a moment, Alexander sat across from her, his dark eyes searching her face. “I’ve forgotten your name,” he said. “I’m sorry. Being a bear makes everything…jumbled…and near the end, I nearly forgot I was ever anything but a beast.”

Gytha pushed the plate of food toward him. “My name is Gytha Ivarrsdattar. Eat a little, if you can.”

He eyed the plate with distaste but picked up a cube of raw fish between two fingers and looked up at her. He put it in his mouth.

“When you were a bear, my father thought you were going to eat my sister and me, and he tried to protect us. He gave you that scar on your nose. Do you remember that?”

He touched the scar gingerly and his gaze went distant for a moment. “You have many sisters and brothers,” he said at last. “I called two of them Little Sister, and the smaller one shouted in my ear and woke me out of a sleep like death.” He closed his eyes and shook his head as if shaking water out of his ears. “That was in the south, when the queen’s magic was burning like ice in my bones and threading my mind with nightmares when I dared try to sleep.” He buried his face in his hands and let out a soft groan. “I am sorry you are here. I never wanted the curse on me to cause you such trouble.”

When he looked up at her, his face was terribly pale and drawn, and he was still shivering. She pulled her gloves off, and held them out. “Here.”

His gaze flicked to her bare hands and then to his own. “Keep them. I haven’t lost my fingers yet.”

She pushed the gloves at him a little more emphatically, and he flinched. Something twisted inside her. “Please,” she said gently.

His eyes were wide and a little wild, and he shook his head. “No. I won’t.” He folded his arms over his chest.

Gytha bit her lip, torn between fury at the queen and an abyss of grief and sympathy for him. She tugged the gloves back on reluctantly. “Eat a little more, if you can,” she said. “Do you remember the place I spent a year? Was it you who came to my bed every night?”

“Yes. I am sorry I frightened you.” The grief and sorrow in his eyes tugged at her heart.

“I thought it was you. Your voice is different than when you were a bear, and of course you look different, but…” She looked at his face, really looked. His dark eyes were almost the same, and the way he’d saidLittle Sisterwith such longing, as if he wanted to claim them as family. “You’re not so different after all,” she finished.

She stood, and he started to rise too, but she said, “Stay. I’m just getting a blanket.” He sank back down, and she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and over his messy curls, with the ends in his lap. He flinched when the cloth touched his shoulders, and she pretended she did not notice. She sat down again across from him.

He wrapped his hands in the fabric and stared at her. “I don’t know how or why you are here,” he said at last. “But the queen is angry with you. She thought you would break the terms of the bargain and look at me. She will not be pleased that you are still trying to help me.”

“Why is she so angry with you?”

He looked down at his crossed ankles, and there was such weariness and frustration in his posture that Gytha’s heart softened toward him even more. His hands clenched in the blankets. “I went out riding many years ago, with my favorite horse and my dog. She approached me and said she would have me for her own, for I was handsome of face and she liked my warmth. She looked human; I learned later it was a glamour. I had thought her words strange, but at the time I thought only that it was unsettling phrasing.

“I told her that my marriage would likely be largely dictated by political concerns, but that I hoped to find love in it too. A life of honor and integrity, with a woman who also held such values dear, would surely lead to affection and love, if we worked toward these things together.