An extra week, Serilda wanted to say. But she shook her head. “Only peace to do my work.”
He bowed and left the room. Serilda listened for the turn of the lock, then faced the straw and the spinning wheel, hands planted on her hips. This was the first room she’d been brought to that had windows, though she wasn’t entirely sure what it might have been used for before it was converted into her prison. There were a few scarce pieces of furniture that had been pushed up against the walls to make room for the straw—a blue velvet settee, a couple of high-backed chairs, a desk. Perhaps it had been a study or a parlor, but with the lack of decoration on the walls, she assumed it had not been put to much use in a long time.
Inhaling a long breath, Serilda laced her fingers and started to pace nervously as she spoke to the empty air. “Gild, you’re not going to like this.”
Chapter 37
One moment the air was empty.
The next, Gild was there, mere inches in front of her.
Serilda collided into him with a yelp. She stumbled backward—her hands instinctively grabbing for his shoulders—and pulled him back with her. They both fell, Serilda landing on her back on the pile of straw. Gild landed on top of her with a grunt, his chin smacking her shoulder, making his teeth crack loudly near her ear. His knee struck her hip, as he barely managed to keep from crushing her under his weight.
Serilda lay in the straw, disoriented and breathless, a dull pain thrumming in her backside.
Gild pushed himself up with one hand and rubbed his chin, grimacing.
“Still alive,” moaned Serilda, copying Anna’s favorite phrase.
“Makes one of us,” Gild said. He met her gaze, laughter in his eyes. “Hello again.”
Then he glanced down, to where Serilda’s hands were caught between their bodies. Her hands, entirely of their own mind, were pressed against his chest. Not pushing him away.
Color burst across his face. “Sorry,” he said, pulling back.
As soon as he did, a sharp pain burned across Serilda’s scalp. She cried out, leaning toward him. “Stop, stop! My hair!”
Gild froze. A lock of Serilda’s long hair had caught on the button of his shirt’s collar. “How did that happen?”
“Meddlesome elves, no doubt,” said Serilda, trying to shuffle into a better position where she could start untangling the hair, bit by bit.
“They’re the worst.”
Serilda paused in her work to meet his eyes, catching the silent humor glittering in them. This close, in this light, she could see that they were the color of warm amber.
“Hello again,” he said quietly.
The most innocent of words.
Spoken quite un-innocently.
A second later, he was no longer the only one blushing.
“Hello again,” she responded, suddenly bashful.
Serilda might have spent hours this past week dreaming about seeing him again or, to be more accurate, kissing him again, but she didn’t know if her expectations were realistic.
Their relationship was … odd.
She knew that.
She couldn’t quite tell how much of his affection was the act of a lonely boy who yearned for any amount of intimacy … and how much might be because he legitimately liked her.
Gods be told, she wasn’t entirely sure how much her own yearning was based on the same.
Could this really be the start of love?
Or perhaps it was nothing more than hasty passion and a recipe for mistakes—as Madam Sauer would have said. She was always quick to chastise the girls in the village who fell too easily into the arms of a handsome boy.
But this was Serilda’s story, and this was her handsome boy, and if it was a recipe for mistakes—well, she was grateful for now to at least have been handed some of the ingredients.
In the space between her uncertain hello and these scattered thoughts, Gild had started to smile.
And Serilda couldn’t help smiling back.
“Stop it,” she said. “I’m trying to untangle us.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re distracting me.”
“I’m just lying here.”
“Exactly. It’s very distracting.”
He laughed. “I know I shouldn’t be so happy to see you. I assume the Erlking wants you—” He cut himself off as he looked up to take in the room, overflowing with straw. He let out a low whistle. “Why, that greedy monster.”
Serilda managed to free the last bit of hair. “Can you do it?”
Gild sat up. There was no hesitation as he gave a firm nod. Relief flooded through Serilda, even as she saw his shoulders droop.
“What’s wrong?”
His expression was baleful as he looked back at her. “I guess I was hoping we might have a bit of time … together … that didn’t involve this.” He grimaced. “I mean, to talk. To … just … be with each other, not to—”
“I know,” said Serilda, her entire body flushing hotter than before. “I was hoping that, too.”
He reached for her hand and bent to press his mouth against her knuckles. A thrill ignited across Serilda’s nerves. She couldn’t help thinking of how he had taken her hand the first night they’d met.
It had surprised her then.
It elated her now.
“Maybe,” she said, “if we work very hard, we can have it done with time to spare.”
His eyes glinted. “I like a challenge.” Again, his warmth was short-lived. “But, Serilda, I hate this, but … I must ask for payment.”
She stilled. A rush of coldness swept from her hand, still clasped in his, all the way to her heart. “What?”
“I wish I didn’t have to,” he hastened to add, almost pleadingly. “But the balance of magic requires it—or at least, this magic does. Nothing can be given for free.”
Serilda pulled away. “You spin gold all the time. All those gifts for the villagers. You can’t tell me you’re receiving payments for those.”
He flinched, as if she’d struck him. “I do that for me. Because I want to. It … it’s different.”
“And you don’t want to help me?”
With a groan, he yanked a hand through his hair. Lurching to his feet, he grabbed a handful of straw and sat down at the spinning wheel. His shoulders were taut as he gave the wheel a spin and pounded his foot against the treadle.
As he had done a thousand times before, he fed the straw through the maiden hole. But it did not emerge a sleek, glistening thread of gold.
It emerged as straw. Brittle and frayed.
He kept trying. His brow pinched. His eyes determined. Gathering another handful. Forcing it through. Trying to wind it around the bobbin when it continually broke. When it continually, stubbornly refused to be turned to gold.
“I don’t understand,” whispered Serilda.
Gild grabbed the wheel, stopping it mid-spin, and heaved a defeated sigh. “Hulda is the god of labor and hard work. Not just for spinning, but farming, woodworking, weaving … all of it. I’ve thought maybe they don’t like their gifts to be given away for free because … hard work deserves compensation.” He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I could be wrong. I don’t even know for sure if what I have is a gift from Hulda. But I do know that I can’t do this as a favor, no matter how much I want to. It doesn’t work that way.”