She gripped Anna’s and Nickel’s hands and followed after him, ignoring how the sensation made her skin crawl. Fricz and Hans huddled at their sides.
The king led them to the courtyard.
Emerging into daylight was bewildering enough. The castle was not ruins. She really had forced her way to this side of the veil, and now she was in the bailey beneath the bright sun. Her feet stalled.
A spinning wheel sat in the center of the yard, beside a cart laden with straw. It was a small pile, not much larger than a barrel of wine.
And all around it, gathered within the looming stone walls, were the residents of Adalheid Castle.
The hunters. The servants. The bruised stable boy, the one-eyed coachman, the headless woman. Hundreds of undead humans, and at least as many kobolds. All silent and still, their eyes upon her as she stepped into their midst.
As a group, their ephemeral figures were more pronounced. Their cumulative silhouettes wisping upward like smoke off the last remnants of a bonfire. They seemed so tenuous, as though a breath could blow them away.
She could not keep herself from scanning their faces, searching for a woman who might look a little bit like her. Hoping that one of these ghostly women might recognize the child she’d once loved, now full grown.
But if her mother was there, Serilda did not recognize her.
Her attention drifted toward the dark ones. Their graceful forms and cunning eyes. All dressed in the finest of furs and leather armor and hunting gear. They were the nobles of this castle, and as such, they stood apart from the ghostly entourage, their expressions unreadable.
The contrast between the two groups was stark. The dark ones in all their pristine, unearthly beauty. The ghosts with their battered bodies and bleeding wounds.
Then there were the creatures—nightmare drudes, snarling goblins, the soulless nachtkrapp.
All the court was there, and they were waiting for her.
Serilda’s stomach dropped. No.
This would not work. There would be no more dungeons. No locked doors. The king intended for her to give a demonstration. She was his prize, and he was ready to show her off to his kingdom, just as he’d once showed off the tatzelwurm to her.
She swallowed hard and glanced around again. She didn’t realize she was looking for Gild until disappointment at his absence clawed at her.
Not that it mattered.
He could not spin for her, not in front of everyone. And even if he could … she’d promised herself that she would not allow him to. Not again.
But that was before.
Before the children had been taken.
Before she’d realized he still had Gerdrut. That she could still save her.
“Behold,” said Erlk?nig, the Alder King, his eyes locked on Serilda’s but his voice raised for the gathered crowd, “the Lady Serilda of M?rchenfeld, godchild of Hulda.”
She did not look away.
“On the Snow Moon, this girl told me that she had been blessed with the gift of gold-spinning, and these past months, she has proven her worth, to me and to the hunt.” His lips curled upward. “As such, I thought that tonight, in celebration of our victorious hunt of the tatzelwurm, I would invite Lady Serilda to honor us all with the splendor of her gift.”
Serilda tried not to fidget under his stare and the curious silence around her, though her insides were roiling. She signaled to the children to wait on the steps and approached the king, trying not to let him see how she was trembling.
“Please, Your Grim,” she whispered, angling her face away from the crowd. “I have never spun before an audience. I am not accustomed to such attentions, and would far prefer—”
“Your preferences mean little here,” said the Erlking. One slender eyebrow arched. “Dare I say, they mean nothing at all.”
One of the ravens squawked, as if laughing at her.
She exhaled slowly. “And yet, I am sure that I will be more efficient if I could just have some peace and solitude.”
“I should think you would be adequately motivated to impress me.”
She held his gaze, searching for another excuse. Any excuse.
“I’m not sure my magic will work if people are watching.”
He looked as though he were tempted to laugh. Leaning toward her, he whispered, with careful enunciation, “You will persuade it to work, or the child will be mine.”
She shuddered.
Her brain turned, grasping at anything. But she could see that the king would not be moved.
Panic set in as she faced the spinning wheel. She thought of that first night beneath the Snow Moon, and how she had managed, at least temporarily, to persuade the Erlking that she could spin straw into gold. She thought of the first night in the castle, when Gild had appeared so suddenly, as if summoned by her very desperation.
She wondered how many miracles one girl was allowed.
Her footsteps felt leaden as she cast another look around the bailey, silently pleading for anyone, anything that could help her. But who could help her but Gild? Where was Gild?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. He could do nothing here, not before all these witnesses.
No help was coming. She knew that.
But it didn’t keep her from hoping. Maybe he had some prank planned. Maybe she’d lied before. Maybe she did want to be rescued. Maybe she was never meant to be the hero at all.
She glanced back at the children on the steps to the keep, her heart in agony over all that had happened.
Then she froze, finally spotting him.
Her mouth fell open, and she barely bit back the cry that wanted to escape.
He was strung up on the outer face of the keep, just beneath the seven stained-glass windows depicting the old gods. Gold chains bound his arms from wrists to elbows, attached to anchors somewhere over the parapets.
He was not struggling. His head was drooped forward, but his eyes were open. His expression was shattered as he met Serilda’s gaze.
She didn’t realize that she’d taken a step toward him until the king’s voice startled her back to herself.
“Leave him be.”
She froze. “Why—” Then, remembering that she was not supposed to have met Gild before, she cleared the hurt from her brow and faced the king. “Who is he? What has he done to be chained up like that?”
“Only our resident poltergeist,” the king said mockingly. “He dared to steal something that was mine.”
“Steal something?”
“Indeed. A bobbin was missing from your previous night’s work, disappeared before my servants could even collect the gold. I am sure it was the poltergeist, as he has a habit of causing trouble.”
Serilda’s stomach dropped.
“But I will not tolerate his mischief on such an occasion. Besides, you see, my lady? Your labors have already served me well. Not many things can hold him, but chains crafted from magicked gold? They have worked just as I’d hoped.”
She swallowed hard and looked back. Gild’s jaw was locked. Misery mixed with anger across the planes of his face.
It was too far for her to see the chains clearly, but Serilda had no doubt they were crafted of strands of pure gold, woven into an unbreakable chain.
Her heart ached.