was one of the only people who could get her to leave her room.”
“That’s nice,” Anna said dreamily.
Kristoff shook her again. “Olaf! Keep talking!”
“She loved gloves!” Olaf added, bouncing so high in his seat that his head popped off for a second. “She always wore blue ones, even in the summer, and I started to wonder…maybe she has a thing about dirt. Oh! And she liked to read maps and books the king and queen left her. I never met them,” he said sadly. “Elsa told me that was when she stopped coming out of her room. Until this year, when she had to get ready to be queen. Then she had to leave her room a lot.”
“That’s so sad,” Anna said. Her voice seemed far away. “It was like she was locking herself away from the world. Sometimes I felt like that in Harmon—kept apart from the rest of the kingdom. I wanted to see more.”
“You will—but you have to stay awake. Barn!” Kristoff shouted. “Thank goodness. Stop, Sven!”
Anna saw the barn through the driving snow and then the world went dark.
Next thing she knew, she was somewhere warm and she could smell hay. She heard a fire crackling nearby. Her eyes fluttered open.
“There you are!” Kristoff said. “You’ve been out for hours. Olaf, she’s awake! I thought…I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You need…you need soup.”
Sven snorted.
“Soup?” Anna said groggily. She was covered in a wool blanket and appeared to be in a large barn. She could see horses nibbling hay in their stalls and chickens in their coop. A cow mooed close by. Everyone was sheltered indoors in this weather.
“Yes, she needs soup,” Kristoff argued with the reindeer. “She needs to eat something. She didn’t have any glogg at the castle like I did, and you ate all the carrots.” Sven snorted again. “I’m just concerned, that’s all.” Sven pawed at the ground. “Yes, that’s all. Enough, Sven.” Kristoff held out a mug. “Here. You’ll be happy to know I asked the family if we could stay in the barn this time, and they said yes. They were just happy to get news from Arendelle. Not that we have much news, but seeing a talking snowman seemed to make the kids happy.”
Olaf giggled. “They liked my personal flurry, but they said they were tired of the snow.”
“Even I’m tired of the snow, and I harvest ice for a living,” Kristoff said. “Anna? Have some soup.”
She sat up slowly. Her head was still pounding. She groaned.
Kristoff held the mug to her lips. “Come on. Just have a little.”
Anna took a sip, feeling the soup warm her insides. For someone who was so cranky all the time, Kristoff could be really sweet when he wanted to be. “Thank you.”
Kristoff blushed. “Yeah, well…” Sven snorted again and Kristoff looked away. “You’re welcome. I just need to get you home in one piece. And that’s where we’re going—home.”
Anna’s eyes widened. “We can’t! We’ve got to find Elsa!”
Kristoff sat back and sighed. “Look at how sick you’re getting in this weather.”
“It’s not the weather,” Anna insisted, but she couldn’t explain what she was feeling. She knew it sounded crazy, but something told her they needed to keep going until they found Elsa. Maybe Elsa would understand what was happening to her. After all, she knew magic. “Someone’s got to convince her to bring back summer. She’ll listen to Olaf, and if not, we’ll make her listen to us.”
“It’s getting colder.” Kristoff put down the mug of soup, which Sven immediately started to lap up. “We can’t keep riding around when Olaf has no clue where he’s going. I know you want to help, but it’s impossible when all we have to go on is a vague suggestion that she was headed toward the North Mountain. Let’s face it: no one knows where Princess Elsa really is.”
“The Valley of the Living Rock!” Olaf blurted out.
Kristoff’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Anna told them.
“Neither have I,” Olaf admitted. “Well, I have heard of it. I heard a man say the name when he read Elsa’s letter from her mother. There was something about the Valley of the Living Rock. I’m just not sure where that is.”
“I know where the Valley of the Living Rock is,” Kristoff said.
“So you’ll take me?” Anna asked.
Kristoff ran a hand through his hair. “Do I have to?”
She squeezed his hand. “Please?”
The fire crackled and popped as Anna waited for an