Leanora carefully wandered into the ramshackle hovel, not sure what to expect, but instantly, the strong scent of dust inflamed her nose. Oh no. She violently sneezed.

But her usually bellow-like shout when she sneezed sounded eerily dull and muffled in this strange shed. Leanora paused, wondering. She glanced back at the forest outside--dark trees, darkening sky, dark depths that knew no limits. A lone wolf's howl sounded faintly from the distance. The beasts were out and about, the sun was setting, and this strange little house in the middle of the forest felt like the only secure option.

Leanora stepped inside and closed the door. It groaned shut and clicked on its ancient hinges. She held up the jar of fireflies she'd caught in dusk's soft hues, and by its scant, blinking light, she examined the interior of the shed.

She decided at once that it was abandoned. Dust, inches thick, veiled the interior. But more curiously, she saw strange blobs and shapes of white, grey, and brown. They were everywhere, lining the walls, creating tight aisles and spaces in the rooms. But Leanora came closer, and realized they were cloths. Cloths that were covering something--or somethings.

Curiosity guided her fingers. Her hand grasped one of the cloths, and it fell to the ground beside her feet. A cloud of dust set her coughing, but she forgot it all when she saw what was underneath.

Glass bottles, glass jars, and glass chests. Faceted, sparkling in the firefly light, stained and gifted with all the brilliant hues of a prism. Their colored light reflected, scintillated, and fluttered about like butterflies, entrancing and beckoning. Leanora peered into the glass containers, delighted. She realized the light came from something stirring inside the jars--like dancing sparks hiding in a charred log fire, or sunlight peering behind clouds. What was inside?

She picked up a lovely blue container, and gasped when she realized there was no lid. The bottle was sealed, as if it were made of one piece. But the beautiful light danced inside, and Leanora had to know what was in it.

She cast it onto the floor.

The shockwave threw her against the wall. Glass shattered on the floor in the pattern of a snowflake. Leanora, sore and bruised, was suddenly freezing cold and her teeth chattered. A silvery blue cloud gathered around the shattered glass, and took shape. Leanora watched mutely as it took form. A Faery, with a dress made of ice and snow, her eyes blazing blue, furiously looked down her nose at the small girl.

The ice-faery's gaze could have frozen the marrow in Leanora's bones, and for a moment, it very nearly did. Frost crept along the floorboards in delicate lace patterns, radiating outward from where the Faery hovered, her feet not quite touching the ground. Her hair moved as if underwater, drifting in slow silver ripples, though there was no wind in the shed at all.

"Three hundred years," the Faery said, and her voice was like wind chimes. "Three hundred years I waited in that bottle, and it is a child who breaks the glass."

Leanora's chattering teeth made it hard to speak. "I--I'm s-sorry, I didn't know--"

"Didn't know." The Faery drifted closer, and the cold intensified, prickling Leanora's skin like a thousand tiny needles. "No, I don't suppose you did. Foolish girl. Do you have any notion of where you are?"

Leanora shook her head, pulling her knees to her chest, trying to make herself small against the wall.

The Faery's furious expression turned to surprise. Then she straightened, her icy dress tinkling faintly like crystal, and looked around at the shrouded shapes lining the walls, dozens and dozens of them, all wrapped in their dusty cloths.

"This," the Faery said slowly, "is a prison. And you have just set the first prisoner free."

As if her words were a key turning in a lock, a sound rippled through the shed. Leanora watched in growing horror as the light within the other bottles seemed to stir, sparks and glimmers pressing eagerly against their glass walls, as though every jar had heard the ice-faery's voice and understood.

"What are they?" Leanora whispered.

"My kin. My family. My court." The Faery's blue eyes dimmed with grief, though it hardened quickly back into anger. "Bottled and shelved like preserves, by whoever built this wretched little house." She looked down at Leanora, and her expression sharpened. "Tell me, child. Who sent you here?"

"No one sent me. I got lost. There were wolves, and it was getting dark, and I just needed somewhere to--"

"Somewhere safe." The Faery let out a laugh like breaking icicles, sharp and without much humour in it at all. "Oh, you poor, lost thing. Of all the shelters in all the wood, you chose a faery-trap to hide in."

Leanora's stomach dropped. "A trap?"

"A very old one." The Faery drifted lower, closer to the girl's face, studying her now with open curiosity. "The wolves would have been kinder company tonight, I think. But what's done is done, and I find myself with a decision to make."

"What decision?"

"Whether to thank you for my freedom," she said, "or punish you for taking three hundred years to do it."