Instead, when he was an arm’s distance from her, the boy raised his hands between them. She looked down. His fingers, pale and rough with calluses, were trembling.
Serilda followed the movement of his hands as they came closer, nearing her shoulders. Inch by tentative inch.
“What are you doing?”
In answer, he settled his fingers onto her upper arms. The touch was impossibly delicate at first, then he let the weight of his hands settle along her arms, pressing gently against the thin muslin sleeves of her dress. It was not a threatening touch, and yet, Serilda’s pulse jolted with something like fear.
No—not fear.
Nerves.
The boy exhaled sharply, drawing her attention back to his face.
Oh wicked gods, the look he was giving her. Serilda had never been looked at like that before. She didn’t know what to make of it. The intensity. The heat. The raw astonishment.
He was going to kiss her.
Wait.
Why?
Nobody ever wanted to kiss her. There might have been a time once, with Thomas Lindbeck, but … that was short-lived and ended in catastrophe.
She was unlucky. Strange. Cursed.
And … and besides. She didn’t want him to kiss her. She didn’t know this boy. She certainly didn’t like him.
She didn’t even know his name.
So why had she just licked her lips?
That small movement brought the boy’s attention to her mouth, and suddenly, his expression cleared. He yanked his hands away and took the biggest step back that he could without once again crashing into the wall.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rougher than before.
She couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be apologizing for.
He tucked his hands behind his back, as though he was afraid they would reach out for her again if left to their own devices.
“All right,” she breathed.
“You’re really alive,” he said. He said it as a statement of fact, but one he wasn’t sure he believed.
“Well … yes,” she said. “I thought that had been well established, what with the Erlking hoping to kill me at dawn and all that.”
“No. Yes. I mean, I knew that, of course. I just …” He rubbed the palms of his hands against his shirt, as if testing his own tangibility. Then he roughly shook his head. “I suppose I hadn’t fully considered what all it meant. Been a long time since I met a real mortal. Didn’t realize you’d be so … so …”
She waited, unable to guess at what word he was searching for.
Until finally, he settled on, “Warm.”
Her eyebrows rose, even as heat rushed unbidden into her cheeks. She tried to ignore it. “How long has it been since you met someone who wasn’t a ghost?”
His lips twisted to one side. “Not exactly sure. A few centuries, probably.”
Her jaw fell. “Centuries?”
He held her gaze a moment longer, before sighing. “Actually, no. The truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever met a living girl before.” He cleared his throat, distracted. “I can pass through ghosts when I want to. Just sort of assumed it’d be the same with … well, with anyone. Not that I do it a whole lot. Seems like poor etiquette, doesn’t it? Walking right through somebody. But I try to avoid touching them when I can. Not that I … I don’t dislike the other ghosts. Some make for fine company, surprisingly enough. But … to feel them can be …”
“Disagreeable?” Serilda suggested, her fingers curling at the memory of the coachman’s cool, fragile skin.
The boy chuckled. “Yes. Precisely.”
“You didn’t seem to have any qualms about trying to walk through me.”
“You wouldn’t move!”
“I would have moved. You only needed to say please. If you’re concerned with etiquette, that might be a good place to start.”
He huffed, but there was little heat behind his look. If anything, he seemed a little shaken. “Fine, fine,” he muttered absently. “I’ll keep that in mind the next time I’m saving your life.” Swallowing hard, he glanced at the candle in the corner. “We need to get started. We haven’t much time left.”
He dared to meet her eye again.
Serilda held the look, more bewildered with every passing moment.
Arriving at some internal decision, the boy gave a firm nod. “Right, then.”
He reached for her again. This time, when he took hold of Serilda’s arms, it was determined and quick as he forcefully shifted her body two steps to the side. She squeaked, in danger of losing her balance when he released her.
“What—”
“I told you,” he interrupted. “You’re in my way. Please and thank you.”
“That isn’t how those words work.”
He shrugged, but Serilda noticed how he squeezed his hands into fists as he faced the spinning wheel. And if she were telling this moment as a part of a story, she would say that the gesture, subtle as it was, carried a deeper meaning. As though he were trying to prolong that sensation, the feeling of his hands in contact with her shoulders, just a moment longer.
She shook her head, reminding herself that this was not one of her tales. As unbelievable as it might be, she was truly trapped in a dungeon, held prisoner by the Erlking, tasked with this impossible request. And now there was this boy, righting the stool and sitting down at the spinning wheel.
She blinked, looking from him to the spinning wheel to the pile of straw at her feet. “You can’t mean to …?”
“How did you think I was planning to help you?” He grabbed a handful of straw near his toe. “I already told you I can’t help you escape. So instead …” He heaved a sigh, fraught with dread. “I suppose we shall spin straw into gold.”
Chapter 12
He pressed his foot against the treadle. The wheel began to spin, filling the room with a steady whirring sound. He took the straw and, just as Serilda had, looped one strand around the bobbin as a leader yarn. Except it actually stayed for him.
Next, he started to feed the small bundle of straw through the hole, bit by bit, piece by piece. The wheel turned.
And Serilda gasped.
The straw emerged—no longer pale and inflexible and rough. At some point between entering the maiden hole and winding around the bobbin, in a blur too quick for her eyes to catch, the straw had been transformed into a malleable thread of glistening gold.
The boy’s hands were quick and confident. Soon, he had a second handful gathered from the floor beside him and was feeding it through. His foot tapped a steady pace. His eyes were focused, but calm, as if he’d done this a thousand times.
Serilda’s mouth hung agape as the bobbin filled with delicate, shimmering strands.
Gold.
Could it be?
Suddenly, the boy paused.
Serilda looked at him, disappointed. “Why did you stop?”
“I’m just wondering if you plan to stand there gawking at me all night?”
“If you’re suggesting I take a nap instead, I’ll gladly comply.”
“Or perhaps you could … help?”