Ileana found the fairy at the edge of the pond.

 

It had antlers like a stag, a long winding tail like a cat, and eyes yellow as a harvest moon. The forests’ trees were heavy with ice, and cast shadows between the two of them.

 

“I’ve come to make a bargain,” she said, her words becoming vapor in the freezing air. The snow crunched under her boots as she hid her nervousness by shifting the weight of the parcel in her hand.

 

The fairy blinked at her. Its long icicle-like fingers trailed over the water. Everywhere it touched, patterns of frost spread out like cream in tea. It looked over its shoulder, then back at her.

 

“I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong fae,” it replied, voice soft as falling snow. “I’m a winter creature. We’re not very good at bargains. A spring fae could grant fertility. A summer one could give you rain. An autumn fairy can secure a good harvest. I can’t give much.”

 

It continued to tap the pond’s surface, spreading spots of ice. “I’m just here to put frost on the lake, and the trees, and the window panes. I do so love the window panes.”

 

“I don’t need any of those things,” Ileana grit her teeth and refused to shiver, “I need you to ruin something.”

 

The fairy paused, as if considering. It flicked one lamb-like ear. “I could do that… May I ask what?”

 

“My wedding.”

 

Illeana had been entirely willing to marry Jasper. She had always considered accepting things in stride as one of her strengths.

 

Her father woke her up in the middle of the night at age seven to help him start on the bread? Well someone had to do it. Her mother foisted the bakery’s accounting responsibilities onto her at sixteen? She was good at numbers anyway. Marriage to the butcher’s son? Fine. She would be wed to somebody. Might as well be him.

 

He was her age. He wasn’t bad looking. It was a good match. Most importantly, she’d still run the family business. It was sensible. It would have been good.

 

Then she overheard the whispering in the bread line. People tended to do that around Illeana, like they couldn’t imagine the set of hands that made their food had ears as well. She was a baker and nothing else, but the whispers said otherwise.

 

She confronted her fiancée about it while he was at work, alone. The butchery hadn’t opened yet. He was breaking down a hog.

 

“Why are you telling people I’ve slept with you?”

 

He stopped, knife somewhere in the pig’s chest. He then turned and laughed lightly. He was a big man. He tried to make himself look small and failed. The blood on his apron wasn’t helping.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You told Roy and his friends the other night that I slept with you. I haven’t. We aren’t married yet.” She put extra emphasis on those last words.

 

“Oh it was just prattle with the boys.” He went back to cutting up the pig. “It didn’t mean anything.”

 

“It will mean something to my parents if they hear it,” she said, very slowly, as if to drive the words into his thick skull.

 

“We’re going to be married anyway.” He shrugged his large shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

“It matters to me,” she said. As soon as the words left her lips she knew it was a test. A test Jasper needed to pass if they were to have a viable partnership. Something she could tolerate. “You could say you embellished. Take it back.”

 

He laughed at her then. He laughed and laughed and laughed and he failed.

 

She told her parents that night she wanted to call the wedding off. They tried to convince her otherwise, but Ileana stood firm.

 

Jasper’s family had paid hers a substantial sum upon the engagement, as was tradition. They’d want it back now that she was leaving their son at the altar.

 

“I’m returning the bride price in the morning,” she told them, pulling the box out from the lowermost kitchen cupboard. Her parents squeaked and shouted at her to stop, but she’d already stilled. She shook the box, then opened it, confronted with nothing.

 

“Where’s the money?” she asked hollowly. Her parents exchanged guilty glances that told her everything she needed to know. She closed the box and took a deep breath as they started to speak over each other.

 

“We had to repair the horse’s shoes, but the farrier is so expensive—“

 

“And we needed sugar imported for your wedding cake, the good kind—“

 

“Your mother bought that ridiculous hat.”

 

“How dare you— You lost a quarter of it playing cards!”

 

Illeana wasn’t listening. She was running numbers.

 

The silver Jasper’s family had given her was worth 300 loaves of bread. In a village of fifty people, there was no way she could make enough to pay them back.

 

The bakery was the only collateral her family had. The idea of selling it to Jasper made her want to crawl inside one of the ovens.

 

She started looking for a fairy that night. Her parents thought she was sulking.

 

People did not seek out the Good Neighbors unless they were truly desperate. Illeana had long crossed that line.

 

She sat at the edge of the half frozen pond with the fae. It was as tall as some of the frozen saplings around them.

 

She needed Jasper to choose to end the wedding, the bride price was forfeit then. For this she needed magic, and magic required fey, and fey required payment.

 

The fairy had a nose like a puppy, which twitched as she produced her tender.

 

“It’s gingerbread,” she explained. She didn’t know if they had that in fairy country. “I hear you like firstborn children but I’m not currently planning on any of those.”

 

It took the deep brown loaf from her with those long sharp fingers, tore off a sizable chunk, and brought it up to its face. It took a visible inhale before taking a bite, rapturous. Ileana was used to this. She was excellent at what she did.

 

“This is very good,” it sighed like a winter gale, “I can taste rage. Determination. A little bit of nutmeg.”

 

She blinked. “You can taste that?”

 

“When the snow falls at night and I stick out my tongue, I can taste the starlight.” It ate another chunk of bread. “I’m sorry but I don’t have the power to wave my hands and change someone’s mind. People’s minds are their own.”

 

The wedding was set for the end of winter, at first thaw. Ileana had only a month. “What can you do?”

 

It had already eaten half the gingerbread. While chewing, it reached down and formed a snowball from the powder on the ground, an unnaturally perfect sphere.

 

“Melt this, and have your betrothed drink it. He will suffer unpleasant dreams about you, and maybe he’ll rethink the wedding.”

 

She took the snowball carefully. “What sort of dreams?”

 

The fae grinned with snow white teeth. “Chilly ones.”

 

She melted it over the stove and gave it to Jasper that night, as some tea. He didn’t question the gift. Just took it with the pleased demeanor of someone who seemed to think he was to be showered with such things by right. He drank it all.

 

The next week he didn’t visit Ileana. When she entered the butcher’s, he found some job that needed his attention in the back. She finally cornered him at his parents’ house.

 

“If you want to call off the wedding, I won't be upset,” she said.

 

 He shifted from tired to alarmed. “What? No, no of course not. I like you.”

 

She stared at him. “…Do you?”

 

He shrugged. “You’re pretty. And practical. You’re not like those emotional women who want to marry for love. The marriage will be good. Get my parents off my back about grandchildren.”

 

Ileana had always been practical, but recently she found herself emotional. Anger was an emotion.

 

She found the same fae again, putting icicles on the stables outside town.

 

“What do you think? Is this one too pointy? Not pointy enough?” it asked, the way Ileana’s mother fussed over flower arrangements.

 

“It’s fine,” she hesitated, then appended, “but the one next to it is too short.”

 

The fae nodded as if she was confirming something it knew all along and grew the icicle a few inches the way Ileana stretched dough. “I take it the dreams didn’t work.”

 

“No. Not yet anyway. I need something more.” She opened the box she was carrying. The air became suffused with the smell of cinnamon.

 

The fae craned its long body over the box of oatmeal cookies and happily dug in. “Oh, they’re still a little warm,” it cooed, delighted. Ileana tried not to find it endearing.

 

“Is it enough for another deal?”

 

It chewed the whole cookie it had placed in its mouth thoughtfully. “I’m getting notes of desperation. Are there raisins in this? I’m tasting either fear or raisins.”

 

“How—? No nevermind. Please focus. I need a spell. A charm. Something.”

 

The fae considered this before breaking an icicle off its antlers. It had several dangling there, like wind chimes. “Here. Bleed on this. Whenever your betrothed looks at you, he’ll have a chill. If he tries to touch you, you’ll feel like ice.”

 

It was perfect. Ileana pricked her finger and watched a drop of red hit the snow, while the fae packed away the cookies like it was starving.

 

“Is it as good as the food in fairy country?” she asked. It was rude to ask the fae questions, if one was bold enough to seek them out at all. Ileana was well past rude.

 

“This is better.” It licked crumbs from its claws. “We eat of course, but it’s just food grown as is. Humans take food and turn it into more fantastic food. Fae can’t do that. We do magic instead.”

 

Ileana tried to process this. “Fae can make it rain, or curse someone bald, or give a valley twin sheep for a year… But you can’t cook?”

 

The fairy burped. “I know. It’s deeply unfair. Nothing I can do is delicious.”

 

The wedding preparations intensified. It felt like someone was strangling Ileana with silk.

 

Jasper and her were forced into more meetings together. With the priest, with each other’s parents, with relatives and his friends.

 

Illeana didn’t have any friends. It was her own fault really. Who had time for those when she had the business to run?

 

Jasper sat next to her, but always faced the front of the room. Whenever his eyes flitted to her, he looked away quickly.

 

Other people noticed it too. His friends laughed and asked if he was nervous about getting tied down. As if he was the one who’d be stuck. His mother asked if he was feeling well. He always waved it off. He never looked at Ileana.

 

The magic was working. Ileana’s plan was working. She could just go back to being a baker. To being alone.

 

At least she thought so, until the dress rehearsal. Jasper was forced to hold her hands, look into her eyes, and practice his vows. Ileana only had one line her entire wedding, and it was the words “I do”.

 

When he first tried to hold her hands, he flinched away.

 

She kept her gaze steady. “Is something wrong?”

 

He shook his head hurriedly, eyes darting to the priest and their parents giving him curious looks. He held her hands again and she felt the way his muscles tensed at the touch.

 

The priest began to prattle. She held Jasper’s gaze. His eyes were like a frightened animal’s. His fingers twitched as the minutes ticked on. Ileana didn’t blink

 

His composure eventually shattered like a pot in the kiln. “Would you stop it!” he snapped, halfway through the priest’s meandering thoughts on matrimony.

 

“Pardon?” he asked, a little baffled.

 

“Not you, her! Her! Stop it!” He squeezed Ileana’s hands. That panicked animal look had intensified past what was comfortable. She tried to pull away, and found she couldn’t.

 

“What are you talking about?” Ileana’s mother was confused. The guests whispered to each other.

 

“She’s doing something— She’s done something!” Jasper reeled her in close so she was forced to look up at him, faintly registering she may have pushed too far. Too soon. Bread doesn’t always bake faster in a hotter oven. Sometimes it just burns.

 

“What have you done?! I can’t sleep— I can’t look at you— Just fix it, fix it, go back to how you used to be. Fix it!” he shouted. Spittle hit Ileana’s cheek. Her hands ached.

 

“You’re hurting me,” she whispered, heart hammering.

 

“Jasper, let’s just sit down,” his father tried to reason. “It’s nerves my boy—“

 

“No it’s her!” His grip tightened. Ileana gasped. She had asbestos hands from years of reaching into blazing ovens to check buns and loaves and cakes, she wasn’t used to feeling pain in her fingers.

 

“Let go, let go, Jasper,” she tried to pull back, and everything dissolved into chaos.

 

Their fathers moved in to pull them apart. His mother spoke comforting words. Her mother started trying to direct people’s attention elsewhere.

 

“I’m not crazy,” Jasper bellowed. “She’s cold like the dead! Feel it!” He wrenched her arm up, like showing evidence to a court.

 

Something went crack. Like broken ice. Ileana screamed.

 

She found the fairy that night in the orchard.  It sat in the boughs of a barren apple tree, carving paths for the melting snow to follow down its trunk.

 

“Oh dear,” it said when it saw her. “It didn’t work, did it?”

 

“No.” She painfully adjusted the sling her arm was in. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring you anything to eat. I can’t bake one handed.”

 

It clambered down from the tree and inspected the cloth that the doctor had wrapped her arm in after her mother swore him to secrecy.

 

Ileana was supposed to tell people that she’d slipped on ice. Illeana was supposed to be in bed. Ileana was supposed to marry Jasper tomorrow.

 

The fae next to her was quiet for a while. “I’m so terribly sorry. I only wanted to help but it seems I’ve only made things worse.”

 

“I never should have agreed to this marriage in the first place.” Ileana sighed. “But… Thank you for trying. It’s more than anyone else did.”

 

She paused in thought for a moment. “You know. I thought the fae looked down on humans. The idea of you wanting to help us is a bit bizarre.”

 

The fae shook its head. The icicles there jingled. It was starting to look out of place, with the grass peeking through the snow around it. “Perhaps the other courts do. They see humans when they’re happy. Feasting, celebrating, harvesting. They see you when it’s easy. It makes you seem shallow, I suppose. Winter fae, we see you when the food stores run out and the fire is low, when sunshine is a distant concept. We see how hard you have to work to survive. It gives me a great respect for you. All of you, but you in particular.”

 

Ileana blinked. “Me?”

 

“You make such wonderful things for me, and don’t seem to think much of it. You were hurt and don’t accept that. You shouldn’t accept that. It’s wrong.” One long claw poked her sling. The coolness felt nice. “You came to speak to me. No one ever does that.”

 

Ileana’s face felt hot. “It was transactional.”

 

“It was good. It made me happy.” The fairy smiled at her, a glimpse of white, before it faded. “I’m going back home soon. So the spring court can come in.”

 

“Oh.” Ileana wasn’t sure why she felt so surprised. Or so gutted. She had known winter was ending. “Will you be back?”

 

“Of course. Who else would frost your window panes next winter?”

 

Next winter. A year seemed like a very long time suddenly. So long Ileana did something impulsive. Something she hadn’t planned on doing.

 

She reached into her coat pocket with her good hand and retrieved a scrap of paper. “Here. For you.”

 

“Payment?” It cocked an antlered head at her, and then read the words printed on it.

 

 

“Not payment. A gift. Between friends.”

 

The fairy blinked at her. Then smiled so brightly, Ileana understood the term ‘snow blind’.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“You’re welcome.” She pulled her coat closer. She had just done something rash. Something stupid. It made her very happy. “Go ahead and share it with your court, if you wish.”

 

The next morning her mother helped her put on her dress. Her bridesmaids added a foot of fabric to the veil so it would cover her broken arm.

 

Her mother braided her hair, and Illeana threw out the apology flowers Jasper had sent. She greeted the relatives her parents had invited.

 

However, someone from neither family arrived soon after.

 

The crowd gasped, whispered, and parted as a seven foot tall snowy owl stepped into the chapel. It had paws like a lion and wore a crown of snowdrops. It flagged Ileana down almost immediately, to everyone else’s horror.

 

“Oh hello dear! You must be the host.” It curtsied in a dress made from spun frost. “Thank you so much for the invitation. We are all so excited.”

 

Ileana curtsied back. One was not rude to the Fae. She knew this. Her guests knew this, and loathed it. “It’s a pleasure to have you in attendance.”

 

She had not truly expected other fae to show up. It was a welcome surprise.

 

It twittered happily and went to go find a seat. Her parents and future in-laws converged on her at once.

 

“What is going on?”

 

“Tell it to leave—“

 

“Why is it here?”

 

“I invited it,” she stated bluntly. “I’m an ice witch, remember? Your son declared it publicly yesterday.”

 

Jasper’s father became red in the face. “That was a bout of madness! You can’t blame—“

 

“I don’t blame anyone except myself, but it is my wedding, I should be able to invite some friends.”

 

“Friends.” Her mother’s eyes bugged. “Plural.”

 

“Plural.” Ileana confirmed, but she really only cared about one in particular.

 

More and more of the Good Neighbors arrived. A pair no bigger than teacups, with pale dove wings spiraled in with a cold wind and danced on Ileana’s hand before finding their seats. A little man in a pointed hat who tracked snow everywhere bowed very deeply to her. A woman with legs like a fox and a cloak of fresh powder left chilling kisses on both of her cheeks.

 

Her family’s side of the chapel was becoming full quickly, the humans began to wedge themselves together tightly in the front few rows, leaving space behind them for the winter court. The fae seemed oblivious to the separation, and talked amongst themselves happily. The owl was gossiping Ileana’s aunt’s ear off, not paying attention to how the older woman hid behind her hand fan.

 

Ileana spotted Jasper at the end of the aisle. He was not supposed to be here yet. It was bad luck for them to see each other. Someone must have told him about the situation. He looked at her with huge eyes, and she looked back, unmoved.

 

Someone tapped her shoulder. She turned. Her fae stood there, wearing a waistcoat and grinning. She had no clue where it got the clothes. “Hello, my friend. White suits you.”

 

She smiled for the first time all day. “Does it? I like your coat.”

 

It bowed, antlers nearly scraping her front, and brought her gloved hand up to its mouth, placing a single cold kiss against the back of it. It left a little swirl of frost there.

 

It stood back up, and its yellow eyes went a little brighter. “You must be the groom!” Ileana turned and saw Jasper had edged closer. Did he think to protect her? Scold her? She couldn’t guess.

 

He carefully approached, like if he moved slowly enough the fae would leave. “Um.” He shifted awkwardly, suit buttons straining. “Hello.”

 

The fae grasped his hand and shook it, fingers long enough to curl around his twice. “The pleasure is mine. You must feel very lucky.”

 

Jasper was visibly sweating despite the temperature in the room having dropped considerably since the new guests’ arrival. “Not particularly.”

 

The fae’s eyes tightened a little. They kept hold of Jasper’s hand. “Hm.”

 

“You’re hurting me,” he blurted, every muscle tense.

 

“Am I?” The fae smiled with bright white teeth.

 

Ileana put a hand on its arm. “It’s alright.”

 

It relinquished its grip. Jasper yanked his hand back. It looked blotchy with cold. The fae bowed to Ileana again, before going to sit with its court.

 

Jasper whirled on her. “What did you do?”

 

She looked up at him. He had never seemed so small. “I made some friends.”

 

“Tell them they’re uninvited. I want them gone.”

 

“Doesn’t matter to me.” She smiled again, a less genuine one.

 

He turned red, then purple, then turned entirely and stormed out of the reception hall.

 

A distant cousin found Jasper’s horse missing fifteen minutes later. A search party was organized for the runaway groom, but they never did find him amongst the melting snow and green things peeking through the earth.

 

“This,” her fae said, sitting on the chapel steps a few hours later. “Might be the best thing you’ve made so far.”

 

It was eating a handful of wedding cake. Ileana had long since removed her own gloves and was partaking of it the same way. It added something to the experience of lemon curd and vanilla on her tongue.

 

“It’s expensive sugar I hear.” She licked her wrist.

 

Behind them, the band was tentatively playing. The winter court was dancing, causing flurries of snow to drift around the venue. They either didn’t seem to realize something in the wedding had gone awry, or they simply weren’t letting it spoil the party.

 

“What will you do now?” her fairy asked her. Icing stuck to the wisps of fur around its mouth.

 

Ileana thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. I don’t have a plan.” Her parents were furious. They’d probably disown her after they stopped looking for Jasper. They would make sure she never got the bakery after they passed.

 

If that was the price of her freedom, she would have to pay it, no matter how her heart ached.

 

The fae reached into its pocket and produced a poorly wrapped paper parcel tied up with twine. “Well I don’t have a plan, but I have a gift.”

 

Ileana took it, surprised. “You got me a present?”

 

“I hear they’re customary at weddings.”

 

She unwrapped it. The apple was unlike any other she’d ever seen. Its surface shone like polished silver, and snowflake patterns swirled across its skin.

 

“It’s from home,” the fairy explained.

 

Ileana narrowed her eyes. “I heard that if you eat food from fairy country, you can never leave there.”

 

“Oh, that’s just something we say to keep humans out of our pantries.” The fairy waved a clawed hand.

 

Ileana stared. Then she laughed. She laughed and laughed while the fairy frowned.

 

“It’s not funny! It’s almost impossible to get rid of humans once they move in. You’re like mice with thumbs.”

 

“Ah, so I wouldn’t be invited.” She inspected the apple. It was nearly too pretty to eat.

 

“You’d want to come?” The fairy blinked at her. “For the spring? And the summer?”

 

“Maybe for the rest of forever,” she sighed, “This place doesn’t have much for me anymore. I’m not sure it ever did.”

 

The fairy paused. “You must bring a coat. It’s very cold. And you will have to show me what you need to have a bakery.”

 

She turned and stared at it in turn. “I’d have my own bakery?”

 

“Oh yes. It will be very popular, but there’s a hefty price.” The fairy wagged a finger at her. “You will have to feed me for the rest of forever.”

 

She put the apple in her lap, then stuck her hand out. They shook on it. “I might’ve done that anyway.” On a whim, she kissed the back of its wrist.

 

It flusteredly adjusted its coat and the icicles around its head while she laughed.

 

When she bit into the apple, it was cold and crisp and sweet.

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