Only half-listening to Max’s rant, Cassie watched her grandmother’s face and tried to read what she was thinking. “Gram, what did Dad tell you?”

Max fell silent.

Gram plucked lint from Cassie’s wool sweater. For as long as Cassie could remember, Gram was always tidying. Gram herself was as neat as a soldier. Her white shirt was pressed with a crease down the sleeves. She looked her neatest when she was most upset. She was looking very neat now. “Ah, my Cassandra.” Gram adjusted Cassie’s sweater, and then she took Cassie’s face in both her hands. Gram kissed her left cheek, and then her right cheek, an oddly formal gesture. Cassie pulled back. “Gram, what is it?”

“You found him,” Gram said. “You found the Polar Bear King.”

Cassie flinched as if she’d been slapped. Of all the things she’d been expecting Gram to say, that wasn’t one of them. “That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t joking,” Gram said.

“Did Dad tell you I also saw Elvis?” Cassie said. “Oh, yes, the King’s taken up dog mushing. Saw him last week racing the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.”

Gram gripped Cassie’s shoulders. “Cassandra…”

Dad had told them… what? She’d been hallucinating? She was crazy? That was how he had convinced Max and Gram to drop everything and fly here?

Max inched backward down the hallway. “I’ll just… let you two talk… Yeah. Takeoff will be at six a.m. Um, happy birthday, by the way.” He fled through the lab door.

Some birthday. Why was everyone she loved and trusted acting crazy? First Dad, and now Gram… Gram steered Cassie away from the lab door. “Come, let’s go to your room,” Gram said. “This isn’t a public conversation.”

Yes, that was a good idea. She’d talk to Gram alone—find out what was really behind all this. There had to be an explanation for Dad’s uncharacteristic overreaction. Cassie managed a smile and tried for normalcy: “My room isn’t exactly Gram-ready.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Gram said.

Cassie banged her hip on her bedroom door, and it popped open. Socks spilled into the hall. She kicked them out of the way and switched on the bedroom light. Long johns were draped over the dresser. Her bivy sack was wound around the bed frame. On her pillow, Mr. Fluffy, her old stuffed fox with the chewed ear, sported a roll of duct tape around his neck. Gram surveyed the wreckage. “Mmm,” Gram said. “You didn’t make your bed.”

“You can see the bed?”

Using her cane, Gram picked her way over a nest of climbing ropes. She scooted a heap of maps off the bed and onto the floor and spread the comforter. “Fix your side, dear.”

Cassie really didn’t want to talk about the state of her room. She was sorry she’d mentioned it. “Gram…,” Cassie began.

“Dear?” Gram repeated, more steel in her voice.

Cassie knew her: Gram wasn’t going to talk until the bed was made. Dad had learned his implacable resolve from her. Sighing, Cassie tugged the comforter straight. “Tuck in the corner,” Gram said. Cassie obeyed. “Very nice,” Gram said. “Now, fetch your bag, dear. We need to get you packed.”

“Gram… It’s not that I don’t want to live with you. I just don’t want to live in Fairbanks. I want to stay here.”

“You’ll need sweaters and underwear.” Gram plucked a backpack out of the mess. She laid it open on the bed.

Stay calm, Cassie told herself. This is Gram. Cassie continued in a reasonable tone, “It’s prime season—bears are migrating back onto the sea ice. I’m needed here.”

Gram poked her cane into Cassie’s closet. “Clean or dirty?” She extracted a wool sweater and sniffed it. “You need to take better care of your clothes.”

“Gram, talk to me,” she pleaded.

Gram handed Cassie three sweaters. “Fold.”

Cassie dumped the sweaters onto her bed. Gram gave her a look, and then neatly folded the sweaters and placed them inside the backpack. Cassie fished them out again and tossed them back into the closet.

“Don’t be difficult,” Gram said. She fetched the sweaters. “Your father worries. He has always worried, the stubborn fool.” Gram refolded the sweaters. “He wanted to shield you. He thought ignorance would protect you… but that’s an old argument, and the point is moot now. The important thing is to get you to Fairbanks. I’ll explain everything once you’re safely there.”

Cassie felt a chill. She didn’t need protection from a fairy tale. There was no Polar Bear King. What was Gram hiding behind this ridiculous lie? “Gram, what ‘everything’?”

“You aren’t going to make this easy, are you?” Gram said.

No, of course she wasn’t. Gram was asking her to leave her life, her home, her career, and her future. “What aren’t you telling me?” Cassie asked.

Gram sighed. “Oh, my Cassandra, he should have told you the truth a long time ago. He only wanted to protect you. We both only wanted to protect you. We merely disagreed on the best approach.” She sounded tired. Old and tired. Cassie had never heard Gram sound like that.

“What truth?” Cassie asked.

Gram sat on the edge of Cassie’s bed like she used to when she’d tuck Cassie in at night. Gram held one of Cassie’s sweaters on her lap. “Your mother,” Gram said gently, “was the daughter of the North Wind. She bargained with the Polar Bear King, and now, on your eighteenth birthday, he’s coming for you.”

Cassie heard a roaring in her ears as her pulse pounded. Her mother, the daughter of the wind? That was only a story.

“You know it’s true,” Gram said. “You’ve seen him.”

She’d seen a bear, larger than any on record, who’d walked into solid ice. But that didn’t mean… Cassie shook her head. Why was Gram doing this? It wasn’t funny. Teasing her about the Polar Bear King, teasing her about her mother… It was cruel. “Don’t do this,” Cassie said.

“Cassandra, it is true,” Gram said. “You know I left the station because your father and I had a disagreement. This was what we fought about. I believed you should have been told the truth.”

Gram’s expression was grave. Her eyes were kind and serious. Her hands were nervously flattening the sweater on her lap. Cassie stared at her. For a brief, marvelous, crazy instant, Cassie thought, What if…

But no, it wasn’t true. Her mother had died in a blizzard shortly after Cassie was born. She wasn’t at some troll castle. If she were… If she were, if there were even a possibility that Gram’s story were true and her mother was a prisoner somewhere, then Dad would have rescued her. Cassie wouldn’t have had to grow up feeling like she was missing a slice of herself.

“You need time to think,” Gram said kindly. “I understand. It’s a lot all at once.” She patted Cassie’s shoulder. “You rest. We’ll leave in a few hours.”

Before Cassie could object again, Gram left her alone.

Cassie tossed her backpack into the closet and deposited the sweaters onto her dresser. Why had Dad and Gram invented this lie? They’d never lied to her before. But they were either lying to her now or…

Cassie blinked fast. Her eyes felt hot as she stared at her bed. Years ago, Gram used to sit there, a profile in the dark. Her voice, telling the story, was as familiar as a heartbeat. She’d told it every time Dad had been away from the station. Cassie had always thought that was because Dad had disapproved of fairy tales. His idea of a bedtime story was Shackleton’s journey to Antarctica. Now she was supposed to believe he’d objected to Gram telling her the truth?

She wished she’d caught that bear. If she had, they could’ve run tests on him, taken a blood sample, even tagged him with an ID and tracked his movements. She could have proved he was ordinary.

Maybe she still could. If she called their bluff, they’d have no excuse to force her to Fairbanks.

Without waiting for second thoughts, Cassie tiptoed out into the hall and then cut through the research lab. The fluorescents were off, but the computer screens glowed green. She heard hushed voices from the direction of the kitchen. If she were quick enough, no one would even notice she had left her room. She exited the lab, closing the door softly behind her, and then flicked on the light of the main room.