Stella grinned back at them. She didn’t think she’d ever been happier to see anyone, and the fact that they’d never really meant to leave her behind made her feel ridiculously happy.
‘It’s a shame Ethan’s first plan didn’t work,’ Beanie said as they walked back to the sled. ‘He magicked up some polar beans to see if they could pick the lock on the cell door but they just got stuck in there and waved their arms and legs around, yelling.’
‘Let’s not talk about that,’ Ethan said hurriedly.
They were almost safely back at the sled – when one of the castle doors burst open and a stone troll came stomping out, shining silver in the moonlight. ‘There she is!’ it shouted. ‘I told you I heard something!’
The next thing they knew, trolls were running out of every door and jumping out of every window – an entire army of trolls charging straight towards them.
‘Run!’ Shay yelled.
The four of them ran the last few steps. Ethan vaulted up onto the unicorn and Shay leapt onto the back of the sled, leaving Stella and Beanie to tumble into it in a tangle of arms and legs. Unfortunately Beanie landed on Dora, who honked indignantly – but the next moment the wolves were racing off along the snow and starflakes, Ethan and the unicorn galloping along beside them, and the angry yells and shouts of the trolls became nothing more than faint echoes in the distance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The delay at the castle meant that there was no time to lose in getting back to the meeting point. It had been a fine expedition, but no one wanted to miss the Bold Adventurer and get left behind in the Icelands. So Stella set the compass for Home and they raced across the snow, pausing only to eat and sleep. The compass led them back a different route than the way they had come, and it was very frustrating to everyone that they didn’t have any time left to explore their surroundings, especially when they passed by – in quick succession – an enormous snow shark skeleton, a cottage in the shape of a mushroom and, finally, an entire colony of polar beans industriously building an ark.
‘Do they know something we don’t?’ Shay asked as they sped by.
‘Who cares?’ Ethan replied. ‘I’ve had enough polar beans to last me a lifetime. I’d never magicked them up before Dad said we were going on a polar expedition.’
‘What did you produce when you got your spells wrong at sea, then?’ Stella asked.
‘I didn’t get anything wrong at sea!’ Ethan replied. But, when it became clear that the others didn’t believe him, he sighed and said, ‘It was sea hedgehogs.’
‘Well, at least you can do magic without running the risk of turning yourself into an evil snow queen,’ Stella said. ‘The only thing worse than having no powers at all is having powers that you can’t actually use.’
They had had to lock the tiara away in the top-hat box with the cabbage in the end, otherwise it kept appearing on Stella’s head. On one occasion it even materialised there during the night and when Beanie woke her up the next morning she accidentally froze him solid. They put him in the sled and he thawed out after a couple of hours, and was perfectly nice about it, but it was pretty embarrassing just the same and – worst of all – for the first few moments after she’d done it, Stella wasn’t sorry, and she hadn’t cared whether Beanie was hurt or not. It was his own fault for waking her up. But then Shay snatched the tiara from her head and that cold feeling melted away, and suddenly she was full of guilt and concern and remorse. She had no doubt at all that what the mirror had told her was true – if she used the tiara too much, it would freeze her heart and she’d become cold and unfeeling, like her real parents had been. And Stella absolutely, definitely did not want that.
They made good time, and soon enough they were back at the ice mountain. By Stella’s calculations, the Bold Adventurer should have arrived the day before, but if the captain still meant to wait one more night and day, as he had promised, then they should just about be in time to catch the ship – so long as they could find some other way to get across the woolly mammoth ravine now that the bridge had gone.
However, they didn’t have time to look for another way across, because the moment they emerged from the mountain, they heard a great and terrible thundering from behind them. The four explorers turned around and stared in horror at the yeti racing down the mountain. Just like the one she’d glimpsed from the ship, this was a gigantic monster, at least sixty foot tall, with feet the size of sleds, and claws as long as a man. Shards of ice glinted in its shaggy white coat and its blue eyes were almost lost amongst all that hair. But it had definitely seen them, and it was coming straight towards them, shaking the ground with every step, its huge hand stretched out greedily.
At the sight of the yeti the unicorn reared up in fright, and Ethan lost his balance and fell off, landing in the snow with a thump. Shay grabbed his cloak and dragged him onto the back of the sled just seconds before the wolves set off running in a blind panic, the unicorn close behind. Just like before, they were
