Svenna had kept her promise to the gillygaskins. She returned often to tell them stories. To try to describe the great beauty of the ahalikki, and the magic of dancing with one’s mum under the showering light of a rainbow in the night.

“And so the little cubs who simply could not keep still did sit quietly at last. They waited … and waited … and waited … but still no seal came to the breathing hole. They were just about to give up when suddenly …”

“A seal came?” Juuls asked.

“No, not a seal,” Svenna said to the dozens of little gillygaskins gathered around her like a rusty haze. “Something better. The night skies began to flinch with color. A radiance swept the sky. Flowing rivers of colorful light streamed through the darkness. The colors grew brighter and the whole world shimmered. The cubs and their mother, who were very hungry, no longer felt hungry at all. They tipped up their heads and seemed to drink in the light. It was the ahalikki, the lights from the north. And she and her cubs began to dance on the ice floe as the mother sang the Song of the Lights.”

“What song?” a little gilly called No Paws asked.

“Let’s see if I can remember it. It’s been so long since I sang it to my own cubs.

Deep in the winter sky,

At the edge of night,

Like a secret whisper from Urs’lana,

Sing flowers made of light.

These are the colors of our world.

When evening comes to stay,

In folds of night they roil and swirl,

Then vanish the next day.

So come dance with me, my cubs,

Fill your bellies with this light.

It will feed and make you grow.

It’s the sky’s milk for this night.

The head of another gilly called Abby floated up and nestled on Svenna’s shoulder again.

“So did they dance?”

“Oh yes, of course, and their white fur was drenched in the colors of the lights. Some were pink, some palest blue like a summer sky, some green in the glow of the night … rainbows come down to earth!” She laughed ruefully. “The cubs were like tiny rainbows bouncing about on floes of ice.” The gillys giggled.

Abby pressed her muzzle close to Svenna’s ears. “Did … did you dance with your cubs in the once-upon-a-time?”

Svenna patted the little floating head and murmured, “I did, Abby! I did!” She felt a little stitch in her heart. Oh … oh … yes … we danced. How we danced! A tear squeezed from her eye.

“One more story, please? A Ki-hi-ru, a shape-shifter story?” asked another gilly who had no paws.

“A fox story! Please, please,” they all cried.

“The one about the fox who married a bear,” said another.

She sighed. “Just one more, cubs.” They seemed to shimmer as she addressed them. No one had ever called them cubs, just Tick Tocks.

Svenna knew that in some mysterious way the gillys were becoming whole. They had been cut, maimed, and were still missing limbs from their terrible ordeals on the escapement wheel, but they seemed somehow less broken. The stories were mending them. The tales were beginning to lodge in their souls.

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful fox. And as you know, the fur of a Nunquivik fox is many times whiter and silkier than that of a bear. And as I have told you, foxes follow the hunting bears and pick up the scraps of seal that the bears don’t eat. But this fox had fallen in love with the bear she had been following. She was so in love, but the bear hardly paid attention to her. I might as well be air, the fox thought.”

“But she wasn’t air,” one little gilly chuckled. “She’s going to turn into—”

“Shush, Birte. Let Svenna tell the story,” Juuls admonished the gilly. The gillys loved these Ki-hi-ru stories. Svenna guessed it was because of the magic of changing shapes. In the stories, a creature could actually change its body, and that, of course, was what these gillys desperately wanted to do. Now, as she was concluding the story, she detected a restlessness in the gillys gathered round her. Something was happening.

She felt a riffle of a wind, another thing she had never felt in this tunnel of quivik before. She was suddenly fearful. Had she been found out? Discovered by the Gilraan? She put her paw up to her shoulder, where Abby’s head had been seconds before. She blinked as she saw the head floating near her. A port in the ice ceiling of quivik had suddenly opened up, and a breeze blew through softly. She could see the Great Ursus constellation.

“Look!” Juuls cried out. “The sky. We have never seen the sky!”

Then Abby, a very wise cub, wise beyond her scant year of life, whispered, “Does this mean Ursulana is … is … just out there?”

“I believe it does!” Svenna said, her voice trembling. “I believe it does.”

One by one at first, then two by two, and suddenly countless little gillys began to float through the opening in the ice ceiling.

Shadows! Svenna thought. They have shadows! They are mending. Their shadows were spreading across the ice floor as they rose into the starry night. They were growing whole before Svenna’s eyes. Abby’s head settled on a body that could have only been hers. Juuls was the last to go, and with his paw—not a new paw, but the one he had been born with—he began to wave at Svenna. “Look, I have a shadow now. My spirit shadow!”

“You are on the spirit trail to Ursulana!” Svenna called out, and all the gillys began to scamper and somersault across the night sky on their way. Soon they were clambering up the star ladder to Ursulana. They felt whole, and like little cubs released at last from the nursing den, they could not wait to play in the light of the stars and cast their shadows across the vast ice sea of Nunquivik.

When Svenna arrived at the panel, she listened carefully through the ice to see if the Mystress of the Chimes was in the harmonics lab. But there was only silence. A slight push of the panel and she was back.

She took up some calculations and heard the Mystress entering the main den after going to her dressing chamber.

“Are you still calculating?” she called into the lab.

“Just finished, Mystress.”

“Good. I don’t have time to take my jewels to the dressing chamber. Do so.”

“Yes, Mystress.”

“There was an emergency meeting in the Stellata and now another in the lower chamber, but jewels are not required. So put them back for me.”

“Yes, as you say, Mystress.”

Svenna heard her leave and went out to the main den, where she had left her coronet and earrings on top of the ceremonial sash that designated a Gilraan member. Svenna had a sudden urge to spit on that sash but restrained herself. She vowed not to waste one bit of energy on anger. She was determined to escape. The gillygaskins were free now, free on their way to Ursulana, but she would live—live to see her own cubs again. Carefully picking up the jewels, she took them into the dressing room.

As she entered she stopped short, nearly skidding, which is rare for a bear of the ice country. Seal’s blood was splashed on the isinglass mirror. So the rumor is true—she drinks seal’s blood, bathes in seal’s blood, to keep her coat lustrous.

Then the beautiful reflection of Galilya, Mystress of the Chimes, appeared in the mirror next to Svenna’s. A smirk spread across her face.

“Forgot to clean up after my beauty routine. Such a rush.” She sighed. “Does it disturb you?” Svenna remained silent, too stupefied to answer. “Let’s not get all high and mighty. You’ve never eaten seal before?”

“Is it a pup’s blood?”

“And if it is? So what? Clean it up!” She flung the cloth at Svenna.