In the mortal realm, the upper room of the southwest tower had been barren and dusty. But on this side of the veil, Gild had created a haven for himself, with layers of rugs and furs on the floor and some blankets and pillows no doubt pilfered from other rooms in the castle. A stack of books, a candlestick, and on one side of the room, a spinning wheel.
Serilda crossed to the windows and peered out toward Adalheid. She caught a glimpse of the hounds fighting over the meat that had been hung from the effigy’s body and quickly tore her gaze away.
Her attention landed on the Erlking instead, as if his presence had an unavoidable magnetism. He stood apart from the crowd, standing on the very edge of the nearest dock. He was staring out at the water, his sharp features glowing beneath the light of the torches on the bridge. Unreadable, as always.
His presence, even across the lake, was a threat. A shadow. A reminder that she was his prisoner.
Once His Darkness has you, he does not like to let you go.
Serilda shivered and turned away.
She picked up one of the books. It was a small volume of poetry, though she was unfamiliar with the poet. It had been read so many times, the pages were falling out of the binding.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Her head snapped up. Gild was leaning against the far wall. There was a tension in his stance, one bare foot flat against the wall in a forced mimicry of nonchalance.
It took a second for the question to sink in, and once it did, Serilda guffawed. “What makes you ask that?”
He nodded at the book. “It’s mostly love poetry. Painful to slog through at times, all overwrought metaphors and flowery prose, everything having to do with pining and yearning and longing…” He rolled his eyes, reminding Serilda a little bit of young Fricz.
“Why do you have it then, if you despise it so much?”
“There is limited reading material in this castle,” he said. “And I notice you didn’t answer the question.”
“I thought we’d established that there is no one in Märchenfeld who would ever be interested in me.”
“So you’ve said, and … I have questions about that, too. But not being loved doesn’t preclude someone from loving. It might have been unrequited.”
She grinned. “Despite your apparent disdain for this poetry, I think you’re a romantic.”
“Romantic?” He balked. “Unrequited love sounds awful.”
“Absolutely horrid,” agreed Serilda with another laugh. “But only a romantic would think so.” She sent him a cheeky grin, and his frown returned.
“You’re still avoiding the question.”
She sighed, peering up toward the ceiling rafter. “No, I’ve never been in love.” Thinking of Thomas Lindbeck, she added, “I thought I was once, but I was wrong. Satisfied?”
He shrugged, his gaze clouding. “I can’t remember anything about my life before, and somehow I still have regrets about it. I regret not knowing what it’s like to fall in love.”
“Do you think you might have been? Before?”
“There’s no way to know. Although, I feel like, if I had been, then surely I would remember that. Wouldn’t I?”
She didn’t respond, and after a while he was forced to look up at her. To see her sly grin.
“What?” he asked.
“Romantic.”
He scoffed, even as his face pinkened. “Just when I’m starting to think I enjoy talking to you.”
“I’m not mocking you. I would be a hypocrite if I was. All my favorite stories are about love, and I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about what it would be like, and wishing…” She trailed off, her pulse sputtering as she realized what dangerous territory she was treading into, with the only boy who had ever looked at her with something close to desire.
“I know,” said Gild, startling her. “I know all about wishing.”
She believed him. She believed that he did know. The pining and the yearning and the longing. The unbearable desire for someone to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. To press a kiss against the back of her neck. To hold her on long winter nights. To look at her like she was the one he wanted, the one he would always want.
She didn’t remember stepping close to him, but suddenly, she was there, near enough to touch. But Gild didn’t glance down at her lips this time. His focus was on her gold-spoked eyes. Unflinching.
“I don’t think it’s superstition that they’re afraid of,” he said.
She froze. “What?”
“All these boys that supposedly aren’t interested in you because they think you’ll bring them bad luck? Well … maybe that’s true, but … it has to be more than that.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
His hand came up to graze her cheek before he tenderly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
Serilda nearly dissolved.
“I know I’ve barely met you,” he said, his voice fighting to not tremble, “but I can tell that you are worth all the bad luck in the world.” Having said it, his shoulders jerked upward in an uncomfortable shrug, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t go on. When he finally did, she could tell it was a struggle for him, and she realized that he, too, might be realizing how dangerous this conversation had become. How fleeting, how tenuous, how … unfathomable. “I think they pretend not to be interested, because they can tell you’re destined for something else.”
She took another half step toward him.
He came a half step closer to her, their bodies almost touching.
“And what am I destined for?” she whispered.
His fingers brushed ever so lightly against the back of her hand, sending a current along her nerves. Her breath caught.
“You’re the storyteller,” he said, with the start of a smile. “You tell me.”
What was she destined for?
She wanted to dwell on it, to really consider what might be possible in her future. But she couldn’t think of it now, when all her thoughts were overwhelmed by the present.
“Well,” she started, “I doubt many girls from Märchenfeld can claim to be friends with a ghost.”
Gild’s smile slipped. His jaw clenched briefly. “It’s been a long time since I lived in proper society,” he said, “but I suspect that friends don’t often have reason to kiss each other.”
Warmth rushed up her neck. “Not often, no.”
His gaze fell to her lips, his pupils dilated. “May I kiss you again anyway?”
“I certainly wish you would,” she breathed, leaning into him.
His hand slipped up her arm, cradling her elbow, tugging her closer. His nose brushed against hers.
When an enraged scream echoed from the base of the tower. “Poltergeist! Where are you?”
They jumped apart as if the hellhounds themselves were upon them.
Gild let out a stream of muttered curses.
“Who is that?” Serilda whispered.
“Giselle. The master of the hounds,” he said, grimacing. “If she already found it, they must be coming back. We’ve got to hide you.”
“Found what?”
Gild gestured at the ladder. “I’ll explain. Go, go!”
Footsteps echoed below. Heart thundering, Serilda swung her leg onto the ladder and hastened down the rungs. She reached the lower level and spun around, only to nearly crash right into Gild. His hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her startled scream. Then he took her wrist and pressed a finger to his mouth, urging her to be quiet, before tugging her toward the stairs.
The footsteps below grew louder.
“I don’t care what you’ve got against those mutts!” hollered Giselle. “I’m responsible for them, and if you keep pulling these stunts, the king will have my head!”
Where was Gild taking her? There was only this narrow stairway. They would run right into her.
They came to the alcove containing the statue of the knight and his shield, no longer broken. Gild ducked into it, yanking Serilda in beside him. He pressed her into the corner, where they could both be shrouded in darkness, and craned his head until they were cheek to cheek, perhaps trying to hide his copper-colored hair.
Serilda reached for her hood and pulled it up. It was large enough that, when they were this close to each other, it swept fully over the back of Gild’s head. Taking the cloak’s sides, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, shrouding them in charcoal gray, the same color as the stone walls, the same color as nothingness.
Gild moved into her, his body pressed along her length. His fingers spread out across her back. The sensation was enough to make her light-headed, and all she wanted was to close her eyes and turn her face, just the tiniest bit, and place a kiss against his skin. Anywhere that she could reach. His temple, his cheek, his ear, his throat.
She wanted him to do the same to her.
But she forced herself to keep her eyes open, watching through the tiny gap in the cloak’s fabric, as the master of the hounds turned the corner, grumbling to herself.
She and Gild both tensed.
But the dark one marched right past the alcove without stopping.
They listened as the footsteps stomped upward toward the tower.
“She’ll come back down in a second,” Gild said, so quiet she almost couldn’t hear him, despite his breath dancing across her ear. “Best we wait until she’s gone.”
Serilda nodded, happy for the chance to catch her breath, though it was difficult with Gild’s hands on her waist, sending waves of heat through her body. Her entire being was humming, tingling, caught between Gild and the stone walls. She wanted desperately to thread her fingers into his hair. To pull his mouth to hers.
But while her blood simmered inside, outside she was motionless. As still as the statue that half hid them from view.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
He made a guilty face. “Before you got here, I may have mixed up some crushed holly berries with the hounds’ bedding.”
She stared. “What does that mean?”
“Hellhounds don’t do well with holly. Even just the smell of it can upset their stomachs. And … they just ate a lot of meat.”
She winced. “That’s disgusting.”
They heard footsteps again, and Serilda shut her eyes, for fear they might catch the light.
A second later, Giselle stormed back down the steps, muttering to herself about that damned poltergeist.
Once the tower was quiet again, they released mutual exhales.
“Do you think…,” Serilda started, barely a whisper, hoping he wouldn’t detect the aching behind the words, “it might be safest for me to just wait here, and sneak out after sunrise? When the veil is in place again?”
He pulled away, enough to meet her gaze. His fingers squeezed gently, bunching the fabric at her waist.
“I just feel it would be very dangerous for me to be seen,” she said.
“Yes,” said Gild, a little breathless. “I think that would be for the best. The night is almost over anyway.” His gaze dipped again to her mouth.
Serilda crumbled. She finally allowed her hands the freedom they’d been craving, letting her fingers trail up his neck until they were buried in his hair. She pulled him to her, their mouths meeting. There was a moment in which Serilda overflowed with needs she didn’t know what to do with. The need to be closer, when such a thing was not possible. The need to feel his hands at her waist, her back, her neck, her hair, everywhere, all at once.
But that first wave of craving ebbed, and something gentler replaced it. A kiss that was tender and unhurried. Her own fingers abandoned his hair to splay out across his shoulders and trail down his chest, even as his hands traced poetry across her spine. She sighed against him.
She didn’t know how long they had, but she did not want to waste a moment of it. She wanted to live inside this alcove, in the surround of his arms, in these new sensations that made her feel weightless and hopeful and terrified all at once.
It felt like making a promise. That this would not be the last kiss. That she would return. That he would be waiting.
And then—
It was over.
Her hands closed around empty air. The arms supporting her vanished, and she would have collapsed if she hadn’t had the wall at her back. Her eyes snapped open, and she was alone in the alcove.
The statue’s shield was broken. The pedestal sported a collection of chipped corners and a blanket of cobwebs.
She shivered.
The equinox was over.
Was Gild still there? Invisible, untouchable, just out of her reach?
Could he still see her?
Swallowing hard, she stretched her fingers out into the nothingness, searching for a chill, a shock, a warm breeze. Some sign to know she wasn’t alone after all.
She felt nothing.
With a heavy sigh, she wrapped the cloak around her shoulders and stepped out of the alcove. She was just about to descend the steps when her gaze caught on the broken shield, and the words scribbled into the thick layer of dust.
Will you come back?