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.

Before she reached the cave, a fox with frost-white fur trotted up beside her. It did not run away like animals usually did. It looked at her with strange, knowing eyes and tugged her sleeve toward a hidden crack in the mountainside, away from the main cave mouth.