Kits awoke to the smell of spiced confection. She wasn’t where she’d fallen asleep. Dragonfly must’ve moved her while she dreamed. Little brat.

She picked herself up and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a house with brown textured walls and bright, sugary décor. By some miracle, she’d never encountered gingerbread before, so she didn’t know exactly what the walls were made of, but the smell of them assured her they were edible. And probably delicious. Given her previous experience with the dragonflies, she assumed the quaint atmosphere of this cute little house must be a farce. She closed her eyes and paid attention to the temperatures around her. Thermal awareness spread out from her in a sphere, and she felt everything within that range as tactile sensations. She felt the spikes and dives of temperature as if she were physically touching them, and she could spread her sphere of awareness a little farther if she moved her arms. Or legs. Or stretched her neck.

She lengthened herself as far as she could, spreading her limbs, and twirled around slowly, feeling.

Pretty much everything was chillier than ambient temperature, but there was a colder framework where the walls met each other, which indicated a different material gluing the structure together. Her thermal sense couldn’t reach far enough to gauge the roof. That was fine. She didn’t need a roof. She needed a door.

She opened her eyes and found one. Locked.

She tried the windows. Also locked.

Actually, they were more like glued shut.

“Hah, hah.” Kits put her palms up, beseeching the room with a dry tone. Because her translation spell had nothing to work with—she had yet to hear anyone speak on this world and therefore the spell couldn’t mimic the language—she spoke in her mother tongue. It was full of doubleyous, soft consonants, and vowels. “What am I supposed to do? Eat my way out?”

No answer.

She could melt her way out. Probably. But she didn’t know how hot she’d have to burn before the building materials gave, couldn’t know how much damage she’d do, and also… she kind of didn’t want to ruin such an adorable house. Not to mention it didn’t belong to her. It wasn’t the owner’s fault a dragonfly popped Kits into existence inside their abode. And even though it also wasn’t Kits’ fault she was stuck, she never wanted to ruin someone’s day. How crappy would that be? To come home and find a giant hole in the wall, burnt at the edges, and evidence that someone else had been inside your sacred space.

Kits decided to wait. Maybe whoever lived here would come home and let her out. Maybe the misunderstanding could be sorted and afterward everyone could go about their day as usual.

Time passed. The smell made her hungrier. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. A candy cane coatrack with its peppermint scent became very appetizing.

The obvious finally occurred to her. No one was coming home to a place with the door and windows glued shut. She’d melt her way out. For the sake of damage control, she focused her magic on the doorframe, heating the icing. It melted, slipping down the frame and door as it did. When she passed through the threshold, the icing clung to her in a sheen of gluey sweet stickiness, and she had to flail forward with an embarrassing amount of force to get free of it. She stood outside, arms held away from her torso, licking the remnants of icing from the corners of her mouth.