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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.

There was a small desk in one corner of the room with a wooden chair with a velvet-covered seat and delicately turned spindles on the back.

Atop the desk were several crystal tumblers which held quill pens, ink, and drawing charcoals, as well as a stack of paper.

This extravagance made her thoughts whirl uneasily.

What sort of place was this? It was far too rich to feel comfortable. She would have to be cautious.

As far as she could remember from the direction of their travel, they had traveled almost due north from her family’s house.

A little west, but mostly north. She tried to remember a map.

What was north of the northlands? She couldn’t picture it.

This strange, underground place must be near the north end of the world.

The silk sheets and many layers of woolen blankets had kept her cozy. She had apparently kicked off several layers of fur, and they lay on the floor beside her in a jumble. The fire had kept the air relatively warm, but the stone wall beside her was frigid.

She slipped from the bed and hurriedly pulled the wool dress on over the silk trousers and silk chemise, and then pulled on the slippers. The clothes were surprisingly good armor against the chill, especially when she wrapped one of the smaller blankets around her like a shawl.

She turned up the lamp and explored the room more carefully. The books were strange; some of them appeared to have been written in runes she had never even seen before. Others were in her own language, and a few were written with letters she recognized in an unfamiliar language.

Shifting her focus, she turned to the far corner and the enormous object that loomed there beneath the cloth.

Cautiously she pulled the cloth off to reveal a mirror.

It was a massive thing, clear glass in a heavy wooden frame that tilted easily when she moved it and stayed in place when she let go.

This was perhaps even more expensive than the collection of books.

The girl held up the lantern, her weakened muscles straining, and met her own eyes.

Her hair was terribly mussed; half of it had come out of her braid and floated in a pale, disordered fluff around her gaunt face.

She had seen herself in the mirror on the wall of the shop in the village and in her mother’s polished copper kettle.

But it had been months since she had been to the shop, and the kettle hardly showed her face with much clarity, not to mention that the colors were never this vivid.

Her eyes were huge and bright, though sunken, and her lips and skin were pale.

She looked like a younger version of her mother, with the same high cheekbones made sharp by hunger and the same delicate lips.

The lovely dress hung on her, far too loose, but she thought it would be close to the right size if she were well-fed and healthy.

After a moment, she covered the mirror again and walked to the door. She hesitated. She was not sure if she was ready to meet anyone other than Alexander.

Gytha listened at the closed door for a moment but heard nothing. Finally she opened it a crack. There was no sound from the hall, so she peeked out and almost shrieked.

A servant was standing against the wall across from the door. He must have been in darkness and silence until she opened the door and let the lamplight out. He smiled coolly at her when she pressed a hand to her pounding heart.

Gytha swallowed hard and tried to smile.

He was strange, with his silent, close-mouthed smile and his cold, courtly gesture toward the hallway.

Apparently she was welcome to wander as she chose, at least for now.

She stepped out into the hall and looked from one side to the other.

To her left, both sides of the hall were broken by wooden doors with rounded tops, and the hall curved away to one side.

To the other, soft light came from around a corner not far away.

Both sides of the hall had long strings of carvings just above her eye level.

Perhaps they were meant to be words, but she did not recognize the language.

The first room was mostly bare. There was a dark fireplace, tapestries on the walls, and a table with a chair, but no other furnishings.

The servant followed almost on her heels, and Gytha snuck surreptitious glances at him at intervals. He was less shy; every time she looked at him, he was watching her.

At first she thought the strange look of his skin was a trick of the light.

Then, when she turned from examining one tapestry to look at the next, she caught a glimpse of his ear. It was distinctly pointed at the top, as if someone had pinched it very hard when he was a baby. The pointed top was nearly hidden beneath his iron-gray hair.

That was strange too; he did not look old enough to have a head full of gray, with no hint of gold. His cold, slanted eyes were a light, silvery blue-gray. His skin was pale steel gray, like an ominous winter sky, and his features were as sharp as cut glass. Not a single wrinkle softened his brow.

The more cautious glances she snuck at him, the more she wondered whether he was human at all. She wondered if his skin were struck with a metal rod, if the metal would ring as if it had struck stone.

At last, when she could not bear his silent scrutiny any longer, she turned abruptly and said, “Hello! My name is Gytha. What is your name?”

His eyes widened in surprise, and then he bowed.

“You won’t tell me your name?”

He shook his head, his eyes fixed on hers.

“You won’t speak at all?”

He shook his head again .

“Oh.” Gytha swallowed and bit her lip.

The servant gestured politely to the door, and she continued her exploration.

The next two rooms were much the same, though the tapestries were all unique. Then she found a kitchen with an attached store room for food.

Another servant stood at a long stone table chopping vegetables. The two servants nodded to each other without a word, and the one chopping vegetables smiled coolly at Gytha, with her lips closed. She felt as though they had communicated something about her.

Their dispassionate silence was distinctly disheartening, and she tried not to be too discouraged. She had not anticipated having friends while she was here, other than perhaps Alexander, so it should not discourage her that these servants were unfriendly.

The servant in the kitchen turned back to her work.

Gytha was not entirely certain at first this was a female, but she thought so.

Her hair was a gray similar to that of the other servant, and her pointed ears peeked through the straight, smooth strands.

Gytha thought this might be the one who had undressed her the previous night; it relieved her that it had been another woman, whatever sort of woman she might be.

“Hello,” Gytha ventured. “I’m Gytha.”

The servant looked up and nodded politely.

The angles of her face and lips seemed ever so slightly softer than those of the other servant, and Gytha grew slightly more confident that it was a female.

The emptiness in her stomach was familiar, but it was more difficult to ignore with the sight of food in front of her.

Would it be rude to ask for food? She did not want to let her current hunger make the rest of the stay here more challenging by offending her hosts .