It had been three days, three hours, forty-two minutes, thirty-seven seconds, and two milliseconds since the old Chronos had fallen from the highest parapet of the Ice Clock. Svenna could now calculate instantly the passages of time down to the single millisecond. In this sense, she had become one of them, a perfect numerator for the infernal Ice Clock and its worshippers. But she was no worshipper—she was an infidel. The rage of a heretic smoldered within her. And there was nothing as wrathful as a mother taken from her cubs. She had had no choice when the Roguers came. She wouldn’t have let anyone take her cubs, though she would’ve been even more terrified had she known the truth: They devoured cubs at the Ice Cap. The poor creatures, known as Tick Tocks, were sacrificed to the clock, torn apart on the escapement wheel.

And yet she was expected to work with a small replica of the clock as she calculated the arc swing of its pendulum. For a faithless and questioning Timekeeper, Svenna had advanced rapidly to work as a personal assistant to the Mystress of the Chimes, where she labored on endless calculations.

But even just peering at the pendulum forced her to imagine the diabolical wheel. She began her calculations but felt her stomach churning as she imagined this horrendous instrument of torture. How could they call it a god? How could it be worshipped?

She had only glimpsed one Tick Tock up close. She’d been in ice lock for a code violation. To be precise, violation number 106 of the Complication Code. She had asked why they were doing these endless calculations. What exactly was the purpose of the clock? To ask such questions was strictly forbidden. While in her cell, a Tick Tock had appeared—a strange, ghostly little cub. He was maimed, of course, missing a paw but not bleeding. His name was Juuls.

She tried her best to banish these bloody thoughts from her head as she pursued the tedious work. She scratched out the figures with a sharp sliver of fish bone on a tablet of sealscap, dipping the point into a small pot of squid ink. The figures and mathematical symbols floated before her eyes but connected to nothing—they’d mean nothing to a true bear.

And once upon a time, she had been a true bear. She had given birth to cubs. Nursed them, begun to teach them the ways of ice. And what did she do now? Nothing. She, the largest predator on earth, was a slave to these little figures she scratched out on the sealscap.

The work was endless. In addition to her timekeeping duties in the harmonics lab, Svenna served as an ice char to keep the living quarters of the Mystress spotless.

The Mystress of the Chimes was an odd sort of bear. With her dazzling white coat, she was as vain as she was beautiful. She imported willow twigs as part of her beauty treatment, claiming they made her fur whiter, and that its blinding whiteness made other bears’ pelts sallow in comparison. There were rumors that she also used the blood of young seals to keep her coat lustrous. Tending to her was exhausting work, as the Mystress was an exacting bear.

Fastidious about her den, the Mystress did not tolerate any grit on the ice floor. She claimed it disturbed her footpads. In her sleeping den she had arranged her bedding so that it faced north. She was quite insistent about this. The snow for the bed must be plumped and of softest flakes.

The lab was in the Mystress’s extensive ice den, which had several connected smaller dens. Some were for receiving guests, others for studying and sleeping. The Mystress’s first name was Galilya, but of course, Svenna was forbidden to address her in such a personal manner. It would be a violation. She must always use the term Mystress when speaking to her.

Svenna had completed the calculations and had begun scraping the ice floor in the receiving den when she heard the Mystress’s sharp voice.

“Great Ursus, the Stellata Council meets in ten minutes, fourteen seconds, and three milliseconds,” she said, rushing in from the harmonics lab. “It’s high council. Quickly, Svenna. My jewels, are they polished?”

“Certainly, Mystress.”

“Bring them to me and help with the latching.”

“Right away, Mystress.”

The Mystress’s rank demanded that she wear her coronet, a headband studded with emeralds and diamonds, to meetings in the Stellata Chamber. She was also required to wear the special sash that had the emblems of the Holy Order of the Gilraan, the highest level of Timekeepers. Svenna brought these to her and helped the Mystress arrange the sash on an angle across her chest.

“I’ll do the coronet myself.”

There was a full-length isinglass mirror in her dressing chamber that the Mystress stepped in front of as she affixed the coronet to the top of her head.

“Earrings!” she snapped, holding out a paw. Svenna handed her the two diamonds that resembled the shape of the clock’s pendulum. Galilya, the Mystress of the Chimes, then took a step back. Regarding herself in the mirror, she squinted.

“Stunning!” she declared. The reflection spoke into the nothingness between the mirror and the Mystress. She turned to Svenna. “And I have a new set of harmonics calcs for you to work on.” She thrust out a paw with the sealscap. “Have them completed by the time I’m back,” she snapped.

Svenna returned to the harmonics lab and sighed as she began this new set of calculations. Svenna hated the work. It was so unbearlike. She hardly knew anymore what it meant to be a bear. She no longer had to hunt, as food was “served” here at the Ice Clock. She had no cubs to look after and teach. There were no stories to tell. The only “stories” were these inexhaustible equations that numerators such as herself worked on endlessly.

Svenna sat for several minutes and simply stared at the wall. She felt if she performed another calculation, the essential bear part of her being might just slip away into the tiny numbers and mathematical symbols that were scattered across the sealscap. My life is meaningless. What is my life without my cubs? Why should I go on? It was as if a splinter of ice had lodged in her heart. And if she thought of her cubs too much, a terror would begin to invade her. A wobbliness took over her body; her very bones shuddered and felt unstrung. The cubs’ adorable little faces would float through her mind’s eye and then dissolve into nothingness. The feeling of their soft furry bodies that had nestled into hers would begin to melt away. She had to train herself not to think about the cubs from whom she was separated before they could be properly named, for one did not name cubs until they were well into their second year. Yet she had no choice but to continue—she had to fight and survive long enough to return to them.

So many times a day tears began to well up in Svenna’s eyes, as they did now when she began her work on checking this set of calcs that the Mystress had demanded. She was almost fearful to turn her head toward the figures that awaited her attention.

In addition to her own cubs, she worried about the little Tick Tock cub Juuls. She had to escape the Ice Cap as soon as possible but hoped she’d be able to help the Tick Tocks in some way before she left.

As she peered at the wall by the ice table where she was set to work, she noticed a fine crack in the ice. She squinted so she might see it better and felt something stir inside her. She looked about to make sure that no one was watching. She then rose from the bench where she had been working and, hardly daring to breathe, moved toward the crack. There was another crack, and then another.

There were four cracks in all. Not natural cracks. Ice never cracked so precisely. It looked as if a perfect square had been incised on the ice wall. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she brought her face close to the cracks. She began to trace them with her claw. She heard a slight creak. She drew back her head suddenly in alarm. A panel was opening. A slot of darkness became visible. It beckoned her. Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. As the slot became wider, she could not resist but step through and into the tunnel. Cautiously she began to walk a few steps, then more. The path dipped a bit, and when she had walked a fair number of steps, she suddenly heard the scrape of a whispery voice in the darkness. Svenna jerked about and saw a small fleeting, shadowless figure disappear down another ice corridor.

“Juuls? Juuls! Come back!” It was the little ghostly cub, one of the cubs that had been maimed on the escapement wheel. She now realized that this cub did not simply seem ghostly but was a ghost—a gillygaskin. But if it had died, why had it not gone to Ursulana, where the spirits of dead bears always ascended by climbing the star ladder? This was a cursed place indeed.