The cubs left the skunk bear’s den and swam through a night and into a new day. They remembered studying the torn map and hearing Skagen tell them that Uthermere was west of the Everwinter Sea, south of Bitter Sea. A three days’ journey.

The landscape became softer, less barren. A greening seemed to creep over the countryside, and even on the edge of the glaciers, tiny ice flowers often sprouted. The fish were plentiful, the seals less so. But there were succulent berries and roots and one particularly sweet flower they could not get enough of.

But Stellan knew that his sister hardly noticed any of this. Her thoughts had snagged on this notion that their father could be somehow lost. Lost and hurt and far away.

The day after Third’s strange dream, they found themselves on the edge of a glacier. While they were feasting on the bright blue flowers that grew near the tip of the glacier, a tiny voice cried out.

“Oh no! Please. We need the honeyfrost for healing.” The cubs turned to see where the voice came from. A spot of bright green sprang from the glacier, setting off a small explosion of crystals.

“Sylvia?” Stellan blurted out, crouching down to see if any creatures were tucked into a tiny crevice of ice barely wider than his claw.

“Sylvia? Who’s Sylvia?” A green head popped up from the crevice.

“A frog just like you,” Stellan said.

“Who are you talking to?” Jytte asked, coming over.

“A frog who looks just like Sylvia.”

“Stellan, I don’t think we should waste our time talking to frogs. We need to get on with it if we’re going all the way to Uthermere.”

“You obviously did not look at this frog Sylvia very closely,” the frog said indignantly as he hopped closer to Stellan so they were muzzle to nose—although frogs did not exactly have a nose, Stellan realized.

“Stellan! Come on. We have to get moving. We don’t have time to waste discussing if a frog is a he or she.” His sister was radiating impatience. “But for your information, frog, Sylvia was a Lithobates sylvaticus, a wood frog. Now let’s get out of here, Stellan.”

“That might be, but she was not exactly like me, Miss Know-It-All. In our species, males are always smaller than females.” The frog now drew himself up to his full height, which indeed was not very tall.

“How odd,” Stellan said. He crouched down beside his sister for a better look. “That’s not so with bears.”

“STELLAN!!!” Jytte was ready to explode.

The frog ignored her. “I’m not a bear. You are so vain, so self-centered. You think all species must follow your rules.”

“Well, no, not really—” Stellan said, but the frog cut him off.

“You haven’t noticed that I am much more—how shall I put it—ornamented than your friend Sylvia. My skin is not simply green in color, but there are shades of azure and celadon.” Stellan blinked. He had never heard of such colors. “Now please set down that honeyfrost blossom. I have a more worthy cause for it.”

Third now stepped forward. “You said you need it for healing?”

“Yes, we are experts in mending the broken. Mending our kind as well as your kind.”

“But we’re bears,” Third said.

“Yes, I realize that—the fur and the height were a giveaway,” the frog said somewhat sarcastically. “Indeed, I think I know the Sylvia to whom you were referring. Sylvia the diviner rhymer. The augur of the bog. The gazer in the maze. The seer who peers. So many names for her peculiar skills. That’s the one?”

“Yes!” Stellan exclaimed. “She spoke in the strangest riddles.”

“Too bad that her mate didn’t listen to her. What a wreck he was.”

“You … you … ,” Stellan began to stammer. “She found his parts?”

“Indeed she did.” The frog sighed. “The urge, you know. He didn’t wait to thaw but broke out of his ice coffin too early. We helped her find his shattered limbs. But alas, I think it was too late. He’s beyond the blessings of the honeyfrost. But there is another—one of your kind—that it might help.”

“You mean a bear?” Jytte asked. A deep fear seized her. Could it be their father?

“Yes, a cub.”

“But our kind don’t shatter. We don’t wait to thaw. Our blood runs warm all the time,” Stellan said.

“Oh, there are many ways to shatter a creature. I believe this one was tortured.”

Jytte gasped. Stellan knew what was going through his sister’s mind. Jytte was picturing the Tick Tocks that Skagen had told them about who were brutalized by the Timekeepers at the Ice Clock.

“Could you come? Since this cub is your kind, it might make it easier,” said the frog.

“But we’re not healers like you,” Stellan said.

“True, but you are large and strong, and there is something that you might be able to aid us in. Honeyfrost can only do so much.”

Stellan caught Jytte’s eye. If a cub was in trouble, they’d do what they could to help. “Show us what to do,” Stellan said.

Night had fallen. The water was black, but the frog was like a glittering shooting star through the darkness of the night sea. However, with each stroke, Third began to feel a strange uneasiness.

Stellan sensed it immediately. Were they perhaps swimming into a trap? What if the frogs were working with Roguer bears? Myriad disastrous possibilities raced through Stellan’s mind.

Just ahead, the frog stopped under the glacier wall that dipped beneath the water. “Come along! Come along!” the frog urged. “We have one of our kind who’s taken a turn for the worse. Please!” The frog had lost all his cockiness. He was beseeching them to follow.

So they continued and dived beneath the glacier overhang, then surfaced on the other side. They were, in fact, in a dry glacial cave.

“What you call caves we call bores. Now follow me again and I’ll take you to our ice clinic.”

Third had started to shiver uncontrollably. “I … I’m afraid I can’t continue.”

Jytte and Stellan looked at their friend. They had never seen him like this before. They had faced Roguers, toothwalkers, all sorts of predators and dangers, but this was a different kind of fear.

“What’s wrong, Third?” Jytte asked, extending her paw.

“I smell Taaka!”