She blindfolded the horse so it would not spook as they entered the Aschen Wood. To take the long path around the forest was unthinkable—and besides, this was clearly the way the hunt had gone. In the daylight, they would have vanished back behind the veil, but what if Gerdrut was still here in the woods? Serilda’s eyes darted back and forth along the edges of the road, searching the brambles and weeds, the thick overgrowth crowding onto the dirt path. Looking for signs of scavengers and blood and a tiny, crumpled body abandoned in the wild.
For once, the forest held no allure for her. Its mystery, its dark murmurs. She paid them no heed. She did not search the distant trees for signs of forest folk. She did not listen for whispers calling to her. If any apparition waited to dance upon a bridge, if any beast wished to coax her into their realm, they were disappointed. Serilda had thoughts only for little Gerdrut, the last missing child.
Could she still be alive? She had to believe. She had to hope.
Even if that meant the Erlking was holding her, a treasure to coax Serilda back to his domain.
She emerged from the trees with no answers to her questions. There was no sign of the child, not in the woods, not at the edge of the forest as Adalheid’s wall came into view.
By the time she was riding through the city, Serilda was certain that she would not find Gerdrut. Not on this side of the veil. The Erlking had kept her. He wanted there to be a reason for Serilda to come back.
And so, here she was. Terrified. Desperate. Full of a guilt almost too painful to bear. But more than that, a rage had begun to simmer from her fingertips to her toes, building inside her with suffocating force.
He had killed them as if it was nothing. Such brutal deaths. And what for? Because he felt slighted? Betrayed? Because he wanted to send Serilda a message? Because he needed more gold?
He was a monster.
She would find a way to rescue Gerdrut. That was all she could care about right now.
But someday, somehow, she would avenge the others. She would find a way to repay the Erlking for what he had done.
The horse reached the end of the main thoroughfare, the castle looming before her. She turned and headed toward the inn, ignoring the curious glances that followed her. Always, her appearance made such a stir in this town, even if many of the townspeople had grown familiar with her. But today, her expression must have been its own warning. She felt like she was a dark cloud rolling along the shore, full of thunder and lightning.
No one dared speak to her, but she could feel their curiosity at her back.
Serilda alighted from the horse before it had come to a complete stop, and hastily tied it to a post in front of the inn. She barged in through the doors, her heart choking her.
She ignored the faces that turned toward her and marched straight to the bar, where Lorraine was putting a cork back into a bottle.
“Whatever’s got into you?” she asked, looking like she was tempted to tell Serilda to go back outside and try coming back in with a better attitude this time. “And why is your dress covered in mud? You look like you slept in a pigsty.”
“Is Leyna all right?”
Lorraine froze, a flicker of uncertainty flashing in her eyes. “Of course she’s all right. What’s happened?”
“You’re sure? She wasn’t taken last night?”
Lorraine’s eyes widened. “Taken? You mean—”
The door to the kitchen swung open, and Serilda exhaled sharply when Leyna burst through, a tray of cured meats and cheeses in her hands.
She broke into a smile at the sight of Serilda. “Another night at the castle?” she said, her eagerness for more stories brightening her eyes.
Serilda shook her head. “Not exactly.” She turned back to Lorraine and, suddenly conscious of the silence of the restaurant, lowered her voice. “Five children went missing from Märchenfeld last night. Four of them are now dead. I think he still has the fifth.”
“Great gods,” Lorraine whispered, pressing a hand to her chest. “So many. Why…?”
“No one went missing from Adalheid?” she asked hurriedly.
“Not that I—no. No, I’m sure I would have heard.”
Serilda nodded. “I have a horse posted outside. Will you stable it for me? And”—she gulped—“if I don’t come back, could you please send word to the Weber family in Märchenfeld? The horse belongs to them.”
“If you don’t come back?” asked Lorraine, setting down the bottle. “What are you—”
“You’re going to the castle,” said Leyna. “But it isn’t the full moon. If he took someone behind the veil, you can’t reach them.”
As if by instinct, Lorraine wrapped an arm around Leyna and tugged her against her side, squeezing her. Protecting her. “I heard something,” she whispered.
Serilda frowned. “What?”
“This morning. I heard the hounds, and I remember thinking it was so late … The hunt doesn’t usually come back so close to dawn. And I heard them crossing the bridge…” She swallowed hard, her brow tight with sympathy. “For a second, I thought I heard crying. It—it sounded like Leyna.” She shuddered, wrapping her second arm around her daughter. “I had to get up and go check on her to be sure she was still asleep, and of course it wasn’t her, so I started to think it might have been a dream. But now…”
A cold lump settled in the pit of Serilda’s stomach as she started to back away from the bar.
“Wait,” said Leyna, trying unsuccessfully to wriggle out of her mother’s hold. “You can’t get behind the veil, and the ghosts—”
“I have to try,” said Serilda. “This is all my fault. I have to try.”
Before they could try to talk her out of anything, she rushed from the inn. Down the road that curved along the shore of the lake. She didn’t hesitate as she stepped onto the bridge, facing the castle gate. Anger sparked inside her, coupled with that twisting, sickened feeling. She imagined Gerdrut crying as she was carried across this very bridge.
Was she crying even now? Alone, but for the specters and the dark ones and the Erlking himself.
She must be so afraid.
Serilda stormed across the bridge, fists clenched at her sides, her body burning from the inside out. The castle ruins loomed ahead, the leaded and oft-broken windows clouded and lifeless. She passed through the gate, uncaring if there were an entire army of ghosts waiting to scream at her. She didn’t care if she came across headless women and ferocious drudes. She could ignore all the cries of every victim this castle had ever devoured, so long as she got Gerdrut back.
But the castle stayed silent. The wind shook the branches of the wayfaring tree in the bailey, now full of vibrant green leaves. Some of the brambles that had sprouted like weeds now held red berries that would ripen to purple-black by the end of summer. A bird’s nest had been built in the overhang of the half-collapsed stables, and Serilda could hear the trill of hatchlings calling for their mother.
The sound enraged her.
Gerdrut.
Sweet, precocious, brave little Gerdrut.
She entered the shadow of the entryway. This time, she did not waste time ogling the state of things, the utter devastation that time had wreaked here. She kicked her way through the brush and debris of the great hall, startling a rat who squealed and dove out of her way. She tore down the cobwebs that hung like curtains, through one doorway and then another until she reached the throne room.
“Erlkönig!” she shouted.
Her hatred echoed back to her from a dozen chambers. Otherwise the castle was still.
Stepping over a patch of broken stone, Serilda approached the center of the room. Before her stood the dais and the two thrones, held in whatever spell protected them from the destruction that had claimed the rest of the castle.
“Erlkönig!” she yelled again, demanding to be heard. She knew he was here, shrouded behind the veil. She knew he could hear her. “It’s me you wanted, and I’m here. Give back the child and you can keep me. I’ll never run again. I’ll live here in the castle if you want, just give Gerdrut back!”
She was met with silence.
Serilda glanced around the room. At the shards of broken glass that littered the floor. The sprouts of thistles claiming the far corner, driven to live despite the lack of sunlight. At the chandeliers that had not lit this room for hundreds of years.
She looked back at the thrones.
She was so close. The veil was here, pressing against her. Something so ephemeral, it took nothing more than the light of a full moon to tear it down.
What might be happening to Gerdrut, just beyond her reach. Could she see Serilda? Was she listening, watching, begging Serilda to save her?
There had to be a way through. There had to be a way to get to the other side.
Serilda pressed her palms above her ears, urging herself to think.
There must be a story, she thought. Some hint in one of the old tales. There were countless fairy stories of well-meaning girls and boys falling into a well or diving into the sea, only to find themselves in enchanted lands, in Verloren, in the realms beyond. There had to be a clue as to how one could slip through the veil.
There was a way. She refused to accept otherwise.
She squeezed shut her eyes.
Why hadn’t she thought to ask Madam Sauer? She was a witch. She probably knew a dozen ways to …
She gasped, her eyelids flying open.
Madam Sauer was a witch.
A witch.
How many times had she told the children this very thing? It had been a lie, then. A silly story, even a cruel-hearted one at times, but nothing serious. She had merely been poking fun of their grumpy teacher, whom they all shared a mutual dislike for.
But it hadn’t been a story.
It had been real.
She had spoken the truth.
And how many times had she told the once-ridiculous tale that she had been marked by the god of lies?
But—her father really had made a wish upon one of the old gods. She really was marked by Wyrdith. Shrub Grandmother had confirmed it. Serilda had been right all along.
She was the godchild of the god of lies, and yet, somehow … all her lies were coming true.
Could she do it on purpose?
Could she tell a story and make it true? Or was this part of the magic of her gift, part of the wish granted to her father all those years ago?
She might be marked as a liar, but there would be truths in her words that no one could see. Maybe she wasn’t a liar at all, but more like a historian. Maybe even an oracle.
Telling stories of the past that had been buried for too long.
Creating stories that might yet come to be.
Spinning something out of nothing.
Straw into gold.
She imagined the audience before her. The Erlking and his court. All his monsters and ghouls. His servants and attendants—those battered spirits—who, on this side of the veil, had to endure their deaths over and over again.
Gild was there, too, trapped somewhere in these walls. As lost as any of them.
And Gerdrut.
Watching her. Waiting.
Serilda inhaled deeply, and began.
There was once a young princess, stolen by the wild hunt, and a prince, her elder brother, who did all he could to rescue her. He rode through the forest as fast as he could, desperate to catch the hunt before she was taken forever.
But the prince failed. He could not save his sister.
He did, however, manage to vanquish Perchta, the great huntress. He shot an arrow through her heart, and watched as her soul was claimed by the god of death and dragged back to Verloren, from whence all the dark ones had once escaped.
But Perchta had been loved, adored. Almost worshipped. And the Erlking, who had never known true loss until that day, vowed that he would have vengeance on the human boy who had stolen his lover from the world of the living.
Weeks passed as the prince healed from his wounds, tended to by the forest folk. When he finally returned home to his castle, it was under the bright silver light of a full moon. He walked across the bridge and through the gates, surprised to find them unguarded. The watchtowers abandoned.
As the prince stepped into the courtyard, a stench engulfed him, one that nearly stopped his heart.
The unmistakable smell of blood.
The prince reached for his sword, but it was too late. Death had already come to the castle. No one had been spared. Not the guards, not the servants. Bodies were sprawled across the courtyard. Broken, maimed, torn to pieces.
The prince ran into the keep, shouting to anyone who might hear him. Desperately hoping there might be someone who had survived. His mother. His father. The nursemaid who had often comforted him, the sword master who had trained him, the tutors who had taught and scolded and praised him into adulthood, the stable boy who had sometimes joined in his childhood mischief.
But everywhere he went, he saw only the echo of violence. Brutality and death.
Everyone was gone.
Everyone.
The prince found himself in the throne room. He felt ripped to shreds at the extent of the massacre, but when his eyes fell on the dais, it was rage that overtook him.
The Erlking sat on the king’s throne, a crossbow on his lap and a smile on his lips, while the bodies of the king and queen had been strung up like tapestries on the wall behind him.
With a wail of fury, the prince raised his sword and began to charge the villain, but in that same moment, the Erlking fired an arrow tipped in pure gold.
The prince screamed. He dropped the sword and fell to his knees, cradling his arm. The arrow had not gone completely through but remained lodged in his wrist.
With a snarl, he looked up and staggered back to his feet. “You should have aimed to kill,” he told the Erlking.
But the villain merely smiled. “I do not want you dead. I want you to suffer. As I have suffered. As I will continue to suffer for the rest of time.”
The prince claimed the sword with his other hand. But when he again went to charge for the Erlking—something tugged on his arm, holding him in place. He looked down at the bloodied arrow shaft trapped in his limb.
The Erlking rose from the throne. Black magic sparked in the air between them.
“That arrow now tethers you to this castle,” he said. “Your spirit no longer belongs to the confines of your mortal body, but will be forever trapped within these walls. From this day into eternity, your soul belongs to me.” The Erlking lifted his hands and darkness cloaked the castle, spreading through the throne room and out to every corner of that forsaken place. “I lay claim to all of this. To your family’s history, your beloved name—and I curse it all. The world will forget you. Your name will be burned from the pages of history. Not even you will remember the love you might have known. Dear prince, you will be forever alone, tormented until the end of time—just as you’ve left me. And you will never understand why. Let this be your fate, until your name, forgotten by all, should be spoken once more.”
The prince slumped forward, crushed beneath the weight of the curse.
Already the words of the spell were stealing through his mind. Memories of his childhood, his family, all that he had ever known and loved, were pulling apart like threads of spun yarn.
His last thought was of the stolen princess. Bright and clever, the keeper of his heart.
While he could still remember her, he looked at the Erlking with tears gathering in his eyes and managed to choke out his last words before the curse claimed him.
“My sister,” he pleaded. “Have you trapped her soul in this world? Will I ever see again?”
But the Erlking merely laughed. “Foolish prince. What sister?”
And the prince could only stare, dumbfounded and hollow. He had no answer. He had no sister. No past. No memories at all.
Serilda exhaled, shaken by the story that had spilled out of her and the lurid visions it had conjured. She was still alone in the throne room, but the smell of blood had returned, thick and metallic. She looked down to see the floor awash with it, dark and congealed, its surface the sheen of a black mirror. It pooled at her feet, to the base of the throne’s dais, covering the broken stones, splattered across the walls.
But there was one place, only a few steps in front of her, that was untouched. A perfect circle, as if the blood had struck an invisible wall.
Serilda swallowed hard against the lump that had begun to clog her throat as she told the story. She could see it all clearly now. The prince standing amid the bloodshed in this very room. She could picture his flame-red hair. The freckles on his cheeks. The flecks of gold in his eyes. She could see his fury and his sorrow. His courage and his devastation. She had seen it all herself—how he wore these emotions in the set of his shoulders and the quirk of his lips and the vulnerability in his gaze. She had even seen the scar on his wrist, where the arrow had pierced him. Where the Erlking had cursed him.
Gild.
Gild was the prince. This was his castle and the stolen princess was his sister and—
And he had no idea. He didn’t remember any of it. He couldn’t remember any of it.
Serilda inhaled a shaky breath and dared to finish the story, her voice barely a whisper.
“The Erlking’s wicked spell was cast, his gruesome revenge complete. But the massacre that happened in that castle…” She paused with a shudder. “The massacre that happened here was so horrific that it tore a hole into the veil that had long separated the dark ones from the world of the living.”
In response to her words, the blood on either side of that untouched circle began to flow upward. Two thick rivulets, the color of burgundy wine and thick as molasses, crawled toward the ceiling. When they were not much taller than Serilda herself, they moved inward and drew together, forming a doorway in the air. A doorway framed in blood.
Then, from the center of the doorway, the blood dripped … upward.
In slow, steady drops.
Climbing toward the rafters.
Serilda followed its trail, up.
Up.
To a body hung from the chandelier.
Her stomach lurched.
A child. A little girl.
For a moment, she thought it was Gerdrut and she opened her mouth to scream—
But the rope turned with a creak and she could see that it was not Gerdrut. The girl’s face was almost unrecognizable.
Almost.
But she knew it was the princess she’d seen in the locket.
The kidnapped child.
Gild’s sister.
Serilda wanted to rail. To howl. To tell the old gods and whoever was listening that this was not how the story was meant to end. The prince should have defeated the wicked king, saved his sister, saved them all.
He should never have been trapped in this horrid place.
He should never have been forgotten.
The Erlking was not supposed to win.
But even as her tears built up, Serilda clenched her teeth and refused to let them fall.
There was still one child who might be saved tonight. One heroic deed to perform.
With tightened fists, she stepped through the tear in the veil.