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.

Instead of freeing them all at once, the girl reached in and lifted out the old man's silenced voice, the one who had given her the key. It flew down the mountain and home to him. Then she turned to the waking dragon and pointed at the open cage, asking her to free the rest herself. Slowly, Vesper did.