Our booted feet crunched over the icy ground, while we watched some distant neighbors moving behind horn covered windows, throwing shadows onto the snow outside. They were cooking, too, with thin threads of smoke curling out of their chimneys before blending into the slate gray sky. A lone fey came by, driving a wagon piled high with wood and pulled by an old white horse, and lifted a hand in greeting as we reached what I guessed was a barn.

It didn’t look much different than the house, except for a few gaps in the thatched roof, which would need mending by spring, and some holes in the sides that had been patched with wattle and daub. But the scent was suggestive, and then a couple of pigs poked pink and gray snouts out of the door, sniffing at our offerings as we broke the ice on a hand pump, to fill a water bucket. But they didn’t come out of the warm barn.

They knew we’d be in soon enough, and for carrot tops, they’d wait.

It was a peaceful, picture-postcard-like scene. Or it would have been, if it hadn’t also been a prison. Let me go, I thought, mentally thrashing. Let me go!

But the only response was the view skewing again, hard enough to make me dizzy. And when it stopped, I didn’t think I was the same person anymore. Not unless the old woman had a lover, I thought, as my arm drew a plump girl closer, feeling the curves that I’d enjoyed the night before.

My mouth came down on hers, and she was sweet, sweet as honey, sweeter than the cold aristocrats’ daughters in the city, who became incensed if you so much as mussed their hair. Hers was already mussed, and I ran my hand through it, admiring the bright red color and the curls—so strange, so different—flowing through my fingers, and then bouncing back delightfully. She needed no artifice, no long sessions with curling irons and crimps. She rolled out of bed looking better than they ever would.

My bed, I thought, and kissed her again, reluctant to leave even though I was already late.

“Come again soon?” she said, as I broke away. It was as much as she ever asked of me.

“As soon as I can.” It was as much as I ever promised, as much as I could.

I had an ice maiden waiting for me; a good match, the king had said. From a family nearly as old as mine, and far more respected these days. One with hair like moonlight and skin like fresh cream—and all the passion of the icicle she so closely resembled.