Cassie’s head spun. All he had to do was sleep with the troll princess, and he would be free? She bit her lip. Had he refused because he loved Cassie too much, or had he refused because he had not loved Cassie enough?

All around her, the trolls rustled. It sounded like wind in autumn leaves.

Out of the trolls, Bear came. Soundless, his paws padded on the stone. Cassie dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Her knees shook. Two feet in front of her, he stopped. His black eyes were unfathomable.

Cassie could not speak. She stretched her fingertips and touched his muzzle. His fur was as soft as she remembered. She buried her hand in his pelt. He nuzzled her hair. She threw her arms around his broad neck. “Good to see you, Your Royal Ursine Highness,” she whispered.

“You came for me.”

“Just in the area,” she said. “Thought I’d say hello.”

Bear dipped his head to Cassie’s abdomen. He pressed his furry face to it. Cassie stroked his ears. “He… she… is moving,” Bear said. He looked at her. “Can you forgive me?”

Cassie swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yes. You?”

“Yes,” he said.

She smiled, and then she hugged her stomach again as a contraction robbed her breath.

“My bears should have taken care of you,” he said, concern in his voice.

When she could breathe again, she answered, “They did.” It seemed like years ago that she’d been on the ice.

“Good,” he said. They were silent for a moment. Cassie wished she could find words—there was so much she had wanted to say. As she’d crossed the ice, the tundra, and the forest, she’d imagined this moment over and over, but this wasn’t how she’d pictured it, with thousands of trolls looking on.

“I missed you,” he said simply.

She flushed and looked down at her pregnant self, speckled with blood and dirt. “Hardly the movie star rescuer.”

“You are beautiful,” he said.

She snorted.

“You have a beautiful soul.”

“Nice euphemism.”

“On an island of trolls, it is a compliment.”

She glanced over at the troll queen. Spikes sprouted from her head and tail, outgrowths of the eye plates. “So,” Cassie said conversationally, “is she going to skewer us?” Her voice cracked on the last word.

He touched her cheek with his wet nose and whispered in her ear, “Tell me the plan. I am ready.”

She wanted to cry. So close! “Find the castle, find Bear… That’s as far as I got. You have any ideas?”

“I cannot do as they ask. It is not possible,” he said. “They have no bodies. Otherwise, I would have been home to you in an instant.” Home to you—the words sounded like music.

Of course, he couldn’t impregnate a woman who had no body. He couldn’t even magic her molecules—she had no molecules. “Besides, I’d be jealous.” Her voice caught again.

“She cannot help us,” the troll queen said. Cassie gripped his fur—no! She could not be losing him again. The troll princess drooped blue, and the queen stretched a tentacle to stroke her, as if to comfort her. It moved through the princess’s body as if through water. She retracted the tentacle, and for an instant she was translucent. The queen, Cassie realized, was as shapeless as the other trolls. Bear was right—none of them had bodies. It was all an illusion. The queen’s eyes fixed back on Cassie. Pulsing orange now, she said, “Remove the human. We have no need of her.”

The trolls descended on them. “No!” Cassie shouted. Hundreds of trolls slid between Cassie and Bear and, crowbarlike, wedged them apart. She couldn’t lose him a second time! “No, stop! Please!”

Bear was shouting too. She fought against the trolls. Each one she pushed back was replaced by a dozen more. It was like fighting ocean waves. Trolls flowed into her.

Her stomach contracted, and for a second, Cassie lost ground. “No! Please, anything you want! Bargain with me! Anything!”

“No, Cassie! Save yourself!”

She shouted at the queen, “Tell me: What do you want?”

Surrounded by shadowy shapes, the queen writhed on the dais. “Life,” she hissed. Instinctively, Cassie clutched her stomach.

“Do not do it!” Bear said.

“You have life?” Wingless, the queen rose into the air. “You have life in you?”

What did that have to do with anything? Cassie looked down at her stomach and thought of her long journey here—it had to do with everything.

“No, Cassie!” Bear snapped his teeth and swiped with his claws, but the trolls still blocked him.

She’d do what she had to do to save her Bear. That’s what she’d done all along, all for him. Wasn’t it? With her arms wrapped around her stomach, she looked at her love and wondered—had she done it for him, or for herself?

The troll queen, body spreading like ink, flew above her. “We will keep you, then, and we will have your child!” she exulted.

Cassie felt the damp touch of trolls on her stomach. She swung her hand out to ward them off and struck only empty air. “Your princess promised my freedom!”

The troll princess shrank into a ball. “I didn’t know!” she wailed.

Growing like some mythical god, the queen filled the cavernous room. The trolls thickened around Cassie and Bear. Through wisps of gray, the queen throbbed orange and green. “Your baby for your king. It is our bargain.”

Cassie looked down at her bulging stomach. Here was her chance for the two things she’d wanted when she’d begun this journey: her Bear and no baby. Except that it was not that simple. It hadn’t been that simple for a while now. “There must be something else you want,” she said.

“We make no other offer,” the queen said.

Cassie stroked her stomach and almost felt dйjа vu, though it wasn’t her memory she was feeling. She knew this moment. This had been her mother’s choice when she’d faced down the North Wind. This had been her father’s choice when he’d honored Gail’s sacrifice and stayed with the newborn Cassie. Cassie hadn’t understood it before. She hadn’t understood them. But she did now—the horrible frustration her father must have felt, having to make that choice, this choice. All at once, she forgave him; she forgave them both. How could she give up her baby? But how could she lose Bear? She needed him. She loved him.

“Do not do it, Cassie,” he said. “Leave me. Please, I beg you.” She heard the words: If you love me, let me go.

She loved him enough to leave all she had ever known, to turn her world upside down, to come to this place beyond all known places, to risk her life, to almost die.

Did she love him enough to let him go?

Yes, she did.

The queen pulsed brighter. “What is your answer?”

Bowing her head, Cassie said a single word: “No.”

CHAPTER 31

Latitude indeterminate

Longitude indeterminate

Altitude indeterminate

Hissing, the trolls rolled over them. One troll was a drop of water, but hundreds of thousands were a tidal wave. More trolls flooded between Cassie and Bear. No, wait! She wasn’t ready yet! She hadn’t said good-bye.

Bear blurred behind trolls as if underwater. Muscles straining, he pushed at the tide. Cassie skidded backward. “At least let me say good-bye! Please!” She heard him call her name, and the trolls hissed louder. “Bear, I love you!” she yelled. Could he hear her? Please, let him have heard her. He’d never heard her say it. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” For everything! she wanted to say—for not trusting him, for endangering their baby, and most of all for failing to rescue him. She had proved to be her father’s daughter to the end. She had found her limit, the line she would not cross, the cliff she would not leap off. Bear was now a white smudge behind the gray shadows. “Bear!”

Her stomach seized.

For an instant, she lost her breath, and the trolls swept her up. She sailed backward and rammed into a wall. Her face smushed sideways against stone. “You’re crushing me!” Crushing the baby!