The prince made his home by the glass coffin and the dwarves returned to work. Each day they came back and brought bread and stew up to the mound and would sit in the dying light and talk and sometimes even sing. They would sing to Snow White and the prince would join in. Every day he grew stronger, and after a while they’d come back to find he’d fetched wood and water and caught animals in the forest for them to eat. He never left the mound for long though, and hardy as the dwarves were, they could see that he was falling in love with their frozen princess.

He talked to her. They heard him sometimes, his voice low and full of good humour, recounting stories of battles and jousts and balls and a glittering castle of light. He smiled and touched the glass, as if hoping she would lift her own hand and touch his from the other side. Sometimes Dreamy would just watch from the trees. The handsome prince regaling the frozen beauty with his stories, or just sitting quietly beside her and looking at her. He willed her to breathe, just as they all did. But her eyes remained lifeless and staring skywards. As the world turned and the days passed, she did not change.

‘You’re nearly recovered,’ Dreamy said, one evening as the fire embers died down and the dwarves headed back to their cottages. ‘You’ll be able to return to your land soon. You must be pleased.’

‘I’m not quite well enough yet,’ the young prince replied, and Dreamy thought he’d never seen such a sad and handsome face as that upon which the fading firelight danced. His own heart felt heavy. Perhaps they should have made his bed inside the small cottage. Perhaps giving him so much time with their cursed princess had been stupid. Now there was more heartache ahead when the young man would have to leave her.

He didn’t read before sleeping that night. There was too much tragedy and romance already surrounding them. Instead, he lay awake on the wooden table outside the cottage and stared at the stars and wished for happy endings.

It was perhaps a week later, as the cool breath of autumn swept through the forest, that they first noticed the ravens. They were sitting on the fences at the bottom of the mountain on the Dwarf Path.