People called her Girl, or Nobody, or Hush, because she had never made a sound and no one had ever given her a real name. The night the snow fell purple over the peaks, she packed a crust of bread and started climbing. Under the mountain lived the dragon Vesper, who did not hoard gold. She hoarded names, stacked in the dark like cold little coins. The girl wanted just one. Her own.

Halfway up, the girl found an old man frozen stiff against a rock, still breathing slow. His eyes flicked open. 'You're going to the dragon,' he whispered. 'I went too, long ago. She took my name and I forgot the way home.' He pressed a small iron key into her cold hand.

The key was warm even in the freezing wind. The girl reached the cave and found, behind a locked iron grate, all the voices Vesper had ever silenced, humming softly in the dark. The little key fit the lock perfectly. She turned it before the dragon even woke.

The grate swung open and a hundred trapped voices rushed free, swirling around the girl. One brushed past her lips, and suddenly she could speak. 'Thank you,' she whispered, her very first words. Vesper woke to an empty cage and an unlocked heart, and chose, at last, to let the hoarding end.