‘We can’t leave Stella behind,’ Beanie said. ‘We just can’t.’
Stella felt a surge of affection for Beanie, but the next moment, Ethan grabbed the front of his cloak and slammed him up against the wall of the cell. ‘We can leave her behind, and we’re going to!’ he said – in fact he almost snarled the words at the smaller boy. ‘I am not going to spend the rest of my life locked up in this foul place for anyone – not for anyone, do you understand?’
Beanie shoved the magician away and turned to Shay. ‘You don’t agree with him, do you?’
Shay shook his head and said, ‘Look, I don’t want to leave Stella here any more than you do. But we have a responsibility to our clubs. And there’s no point in all of us staying locked up. That isn’t going to help anyone, including Stella.’
Stella could hardly believe what she was hearing. She supposed Ethan and Shay were right, in a way, but she’d never thought that they would agree to abandon her so easily, especially when she was on her way to rescue them. Had they even tried to escape? Had they at least considered a rescue attempt before deciding to leave her to her fate?
Beanie tried to argue with them a little more, but it was a bit half-hearted and he was outnumbered. In no time at all, it had been agreed that the three explorers were to be set free, taking with them the sled and wolves and unicorn.
Stella turned and raced back up the stairs the way she’d come. If she wasn’t on that sled when it left then she’d have no way of getting home and no way of surviving out in the frozen wilderness by herself. She would be trapped here, maybe forever. No doubt Felix would try to rescue her, but Stella knew it was no good sitting around and waiting to be rescued. No one ever got anywhere that way.
She took the stairs two at a time, dived into the library and hastily ran her eye down the spines of the books in the far corner of the room until she found the one she was looking for. She yanked it from the shelf, and to her relief it worked just the same as it had in the dolls’ castle – the entire bookcase swung open to reveal a hidden passage behind.
Stella hurried through, drawing the bookshelf door closed after her. As with the rest of the castle when she’d first arrived, the secret passageway seemed to come to life in her presence: the sconces on the walls lit themselves, although the passage remained dusty and cobwebby – perhaps because secret passageways were supposed to be dusty and cobwebby.
Stella didn’t know where the secret passage led – she just hoped it would get her outside the castle, and she wasn’t disappointed. Soon enough she walked up some steps, opened a sliding door and found herself in some kind of garden shed, filled with skates and sleigh blankets. She opened the door and stepped outside into the cold, frosty air, squinting in the sudden bright sunlight, and the twinkling glow of the starflakes. Gazing around, she wondered what had become of their sled and animals. Perhaps there was a stable in the grounds somewhere and everything had been put there?
Stella kept re-hearing the conversation in the dungeon over and over again in her mind, and it was giving her the most terribly hollow feeling. Even Beanie hadn’t tried all that hard to stand up for her, and that stung worst of all.
She told herself to get it together. She couldn’t be thinking about such things right now. She had to find the sled and somehow hide herself on it before it was too late. She had no idea how she was going to do that, seeing as there wasn’t much room to hide on a sled, but she had to at least try concealing herself under a blanket or something.
But then she saw the sled itself, heading away from the castle with all three explorers on it, the wolves panting and huffing, the unicorn trotting along behind – and her heart sank like a stone into the pit of her stomach.
They had left her. They had really left her at the snow queen’s castle.
She was alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
For a long moment, Stella simply stood there, not knowing what to do. Then she became aware of some kind of activity from within the castle, and dozens of stone trolls came swarming through the front doors, heading off in all different directions. Stella guessed they were looking for her. They must have discovered the two trolls she’d turned to ice outside her room, and raised the alarm.
She turned and stumbled back towards the shed she’d just come from, thankful that her boots didn’t leave footprints in the starflakes. Perhaps she could hide in the secret passage for a while, until she figured out what to do. Part of her wondered whether there was even any point. Perhaps she should just turn herself over to the trolls right this moment. After all, she couldn’t leave the castle now. Not without a tent or a sled or any supplies at all. Ice princess or not, she’d freeze to death during the first night for sure. And yet, just returning meekly to the castle with the stone trolls would be giving up. There had to be some way out of this, something she hadn’t thought of …
So Stella ran back into the shed and through the hidden door in the wall. She dragged it closed behind her and then sat down in despair
