“You won’t be there?” shouted Gerdrut. “Why not?”
“Is it because—” Hans began, but then stopped himself. As a Lindbeck, he had probably heard all about the year that his older brother danced with the cursed girl, and wolves got into their fields.
“No,” said Serilda, reaching over to squeeze his hand. “I don’t care what everyone says about me, even if I am bad luck.”
His frown deepened.
Serilda sighed. “My father and I are going to visit Mondbrück in a few days, and we aren’t entirely sure when we’ll be back. That’s all. But of course I hope to be here for the festival. I would hate to miss it.”
Chapter 20
She’d spotted a black bird flying over the spring market when she was picking out a bunch of onions that morning, and could not tell whether it was a crow or a raven or one of the Erlking’s spies. The image had haunted her the rest of the day, those wings spread wide as it circled above the bustling square outside Mondbrück’s nearly completed town hall. Around and around. A predator, waiting for the opportune moment to dive for its prey.
She wondered if she would ever again hear a crow’s throaty scream without startling.
“Serilda?”
She glanced up from her salmon pie. The main room of the inn was swarming with guests who had come in from nearby provinces to enjoy the market or sell their wares, but Serilda and her father had kept to themselves since they’d arrived two days ago.
“It’s going to be all right,” her father murmured, reaching across the table to pat her wrist. “It’s only one night, and then we will get as far away from here as we can.”
She smiled faintly. Her stomach was in knots, a hundred doubts creeping into her thoughts, despite all her father’s assurances.
One more night. The hunt might come looking for her at the mill, but they would not find her, and come sunrise, she would be free.
At least, free enough to keep running.
It filled Serilda with dread to think about the next month, and the month after that.
How many years would pass before her father was able to let down his guard? Before they truly felt that they’d managed to get away?
And always, those annoying whispers that it was all for naught. The Erlking might already be done with her. What if they were disrupting their lives and leaving behind everything they’d ever known all because of a stew of unfounded fears?
Not that it mattered now, she told herself. Her father was committed. She knew there was no talking him out of their plan.
She had to accept that her life would never be the same after this night.
She glanced toward the open doorway, where she could see daylight fading into dusk. “It’s almost time.”
Papa nodded. “Finish your pie.”
She shook her head. “I have no appetite.”
His expression was sympathetic. She’d noticed that he hadn’t been eating much lately, either.
He left a coin on the table and they headed toward the staircase and the room they had let since they arrived.
If anyone was watching—if anything was watching—it would appear that they had retired for the night.
Instead, they ducked into a small alcove beneath the steps where earlier Serilda had stowed a couple of jewel-toned traveling cloaks that she’d purchased from a weaver at the market the day before. They had been too expensive, but it was their best chance for slipping out of the inn without being recognized.
She and her father each tossed a cloak on over their clothes and shared a determined look. Papa nodded, then slipped out through the back door.
Serilda waited behind. His spies would be looking for two travelers, her father had insisted. They needed to go separately, but he would be waiting for her. It would not be for long.
Her heart was in her throat as she counted to a hundred, twice, before she pulled up the emerald hood and followed. She hunched her shoulders and shortened her stride, trying to make everything about her different. Unrecognizable. Just in case they were watching.
It was not Serilda Moller who slipped away from the inn. It was someone different. Someone who had nothing to hide and nothing to hide from.
She walked the path she had memorized days ago. Down the long alley, past the public house, with raucous laughter spilling out the doorway, past a bakery closed for the night, past a cobbler and a small shop with a spinning wheel in the window.
She turned and hurried around the square, keeping to the shadows, until she arrived at the side door of the town hall. She usually loved this time of year, when boards were removed from windows to let out the stifling, stale air. When every sprig of grass and tiny wildflower was a new promise from Eostrig. When the market filled with early spring vegetables—beetroot and radishes and leeks—and the fear of hunger abated.
But this year, all she could think about was the shadow of the wild hunt looming over her.
She had just begun to tap on the wood when the door opened. Her father greeted her with anxious eyes.
“Do you think you were followed?” he whispered, shutting the door behind her.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Looking around for nachtkrapp seemed like a sure way to make myself appear suspicious.”
He nodded and squeezed her in a brief embrace. “It’s all right. We’ll be safe here.” He said it as if he was trying to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her. Then he shoved a crate full of bricks in front of the door.
Her father had sneaked blankets into what would become the council chamber. He lit a single candle, chasing away the otherwise pitch-black. They said little. There was nothing to discuss that they hadn’t already discussed at length these past weeks. Their preparations, their fears, their plans.
Now there was nothing to do but wait for the Crow Moon to pass.
Serilda did not believe she would sleep at all as she curled up on the hard floor, using the new cloak to cushion her head. She tried to tell herself this would work.
The coachman might again come for her at the mill in M?rchenfeld. Or, if the king’s spies had been paying attention, they might come for her at the Mondbrück inn.
But they would not find her. Not here, in this enormous barren hall full of unfinished woodwork and carts laden with bricks and stones.
“Wait, we mustn’t forget,” said her father, pulling the candle from its copper base. He tipped it at an angle, so that the flame melted the wax around the wick. It soon dripped down onto the candlestick in a small pool. Once it had begun to cool, Serilda picked up the soft wax and formed it into balls, before pressing it into her ears. The world closed in around her.
Her father did the same, though he made a face as he squished the wax into his ears. It was not a pleasant sensation, but it was a precaution against the call of the hunt. The silence of the night was complete, but the thoughts in Serilda’s head became aggressively loud as she laid her head back down on the cloak.
Her mother.
The Erlking.