“And maybe almost got me killed.”

  “Almost. But didn’t.”

  She glared at him.

  Gild sighed. “I did mean to apologize. It was bad timing, which seems to be common practice around you.”

  She grimaced, wondering if Gild had overheard her conversation with the Erlking last time, when she’d told him that people in her village saw her as bad luck.

  “But I didn’t realize we were expecting a mortal guest.” His hands shot up defensively. “I swear I didn’t mean any harm. Not to you, at least. The king, he just gets real protective of those hounds, and I thought it’d get under his skin.”

  “You pull a lot of pranks on the king?”

  “Have to do something to stay busy.”

  She hummed. “But why does he call you the poltergeist?”

  “What else should he call me?”

  “I don’t know, but … a poltergeist is a ghost.”

  He glanced at her, the corners of his mouth twitching. “You do know what sort of castle you’re in, don’t you?”

  “A haunted one?”

  His jaw clenched as he focused on the wheel again.

  “Yes, but you don’t look like the other ghosts.” She scanned the top of his head, the tips of his shoulders. “They fade around the edges. Whereas you seem … entirely present.”

  “I guess that’s true. I can do things they can’t, too. Like popping in and out of locked rooms, for example.”

  “And weren’t you blessed by Hulda?” she added. “But that doesn’t make sense, if the dead can’t use god-gifts, like you said.”

  He stopped working, his gaze turning thoughtful as the wheel slowed. “I hadn’t thought of that.” He pondered for a long moment, before shrugging and giving the wheel another turn. “I don’t have any answers. I suppose I was probably blessed by Hulda, but I don’t know that for sure, or why they would have bothered with me. And I know that I’m not like the other ghosts, but I’m also the only poltergeist here, so I always figured I’m just … a different sort of ghost.”

  She frowned.

  He glanced once at the candle, then squared his shoulders. His pace increased as he set to work again. Serilda looked at the candle, too. Her pulse skipped.

  There was so little time left.

  “If it pleases you,” Gild said, replacing a full bobbin with an empty one, “I’ll have that story now.”

  Serilda frowned. “I thought you hated my stories.”

  “I hated the story you told last time. It’s easily the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then why would you want me to continue?”

  “Just figured I’d be able to focus better if you weren’t constantly pestering me with questions.”

  Her lips twisted to one side. She was tempted to throw one of those bobbins at his head.

  “Besides,” he added, “you do have a talent for words. The ending was awful, but everything before that was…” He struggled a moment for the right word, then sighed. “I enjoyed everything before that. And I like listening to your voice.”

  Warmth rushed into her cheeks at this almost compliment.

  “Well. Lucky for you, that wasn’t the ending.”

  Gild paused long enough to stretch his back and shoulders, then smiled at her. “Then I would love to hear more, if you’re willing to tell it.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Only because you begged me.”

  His eyes glinted almost impishly, but then he looked away and grabbed up another handful of straw.

  Serilda thought back to the story she had told last time, and immediately felt the comforting pull of a fairy tale. Where terrible things sometimes happened, but good always defeated evil.

  Before she’d even begun, she knew it was just the sort of escape her mind and heart needed at that moment. A part of her wondered whether Gild had realized this. But no—he couldn’t possibly know her so well already.

  “Let’s see,” she started. “Where did we leave off…”

  As the sun rose over the Aschen Wood, its golden beams descended over the spires of Gravenstone Castle. The veil’s mist evaporated. The haunted night gave way to birdsong and the steady drip of melting snow. As soon as the light beams struck the hellhounds that had attacked the young prince, they turned into clouds of ink-black smoke and vanished into the morning air. In the daylight, the castle, too, was gone.

  The prince was badly wounded. Bleeding. Torn. But his heart hurt worst of all. Over and over again, he saw the Erlking driving the tip of his arrow into the princess’s small form. The murderer had taken her life, and now even her body was trapped beyond the veil, where he could not honor her with a royal burial, a proper rest. He did not even know if the Erlking would keep her as a ghost or let her travel to Veloren, where someday he might see her again.

  Where Gravenstone Castle had just stood, now there were the crumbling ruins of a great shrine. Once, long ago, a temple had stood in this forest clearing. A sacred place once regarded as the very gates to Verloren.

  The prince managed to get to his feet. He stumbled toward the ruins—great monoliths of slick black stone jutting toward the sky. He had heard of this place, though never seen it with his eyes. He supposed it should be no surprise that this unholy clearing in the midst of the forest was the place where the Erlking had chosen to build his castle, for there was such a sense of lifelessness and foreboding between these stone columns that no one with any sense would dare enter.

  But the prince was beyond sense. He stumbled forward, suffocating beneath the weight of his loss.

  But what he saw made him pause.

  He was not alone before these black stones. The massive drawbridge over the swampy moat remained, connecting the forest to the ruins, though the wood was rotting and worn on this side of the veil. And there, in the middle of the bridge, lay a crumpled form. The huntress Perchta. Left behind in the realm of mortals.

  The prince’s arrow had pierced her heart and blood soaked the bridge beneath her. Her skin was pale blue, the very color of the moonlight. Her hair white as fresh snow, now speckled with wine-red blood. Her eyes gazed up toward the brightening sky in something like wonder.

  The prince stepped closer, cautious, his body crying in pain from his many terrible wounds.

  She was not dead.

  Perhaps dark ones, creatures of the underworld themselves, could not die.

  But there was such little life left in her. She was no fierce huntress now, but a broken, betrayed thing. Tears made treks down her once-radiant face, and as the prince stepped closer, her eyes shifted to meet his.

  She sneered, revealing jagged teeth. “You cannot think that you have defeated me. You are but a child.”

  The prince steeled his heart against any pity he might have felt for the huntress. “I know I am nothing before you. But I also know that you are nothing before the god of death.”

  Perchta’s expression became confused, but when the prince looked up, she shifted to follow his gaze.

  There—in the center of those hallowed stones—a gateway appeared amid a thicket of brambles. It might have been alive once, but now it was a dead thing. An arch of brittle twigs and tangled thorns, dead branches and faded leaves. Beyond the opening, a narrow staircase descended through a gash in the ground, down into the depths of Verloren, over which Velos, the god of death, alone holds dominion.

  And there the god stood. In one hand they held a lantern, the light of which never died. In the other they held a long chain. The chain that binds all things, living and dead.

  Perchta saw the god and cried out. She tried to stand, but she was too weak and the arrow through her chest would not allow her to move.

  As Velos approached, the prince stepped back, bowing his head with deference, but the god paid him no heed. It was rare that the god was able to reclaim one of the dark ones. Once, they belonged to death. Demons, some called them. Birthed in the poisoned rivers of Verloren, creatures born of the cruel deeds and haunting regrets of the dead. They were never meant for the land of mortals, but in the beforetimes, some escaped through the gate, and the god of death had mourned their loss ever since.

  Now, as Perchta screamed with rage and even fear, Velos threw the chain around her and, defying all her struggles, dragged her back through the gateway.

  No sooner had they descended than the brambles grew together, so thick one could not see through them. An entire hedge of unforgiving thorns disguised the opening amid those towering stones.

  The prince collapsed to his knees. Though he was heartened to see the huntress taken away to Verloren, his heart was still broken from the loss of his sister, and his body so weak he thought he might collapse right there on the rotting bridge.

  He thought of his mother and father, who would soon awaken. All the castle would wonder what had become of the prince and princess who had disappeared so suddenly in the night.

  He wished with all his heart that he could go to them. That he could have been fast enough, strong enough, to rescue his sister and bring her back home to safety.

  Just before he allowed his weary eyes to shut, he heard a heavy thumping, felt the vibrations on the bridge. With a groan, he forced himself to look up.

  An old woman had emerged from the forest and was hobbling across the bridge.

  No. Not just old. She was ancient, as ageless as the tallest oak, as wrinkled as old linens, as gray as the winter sky. Her back was hunched and she walked with a thick wooden cane that was as gnarled as her limbs.

  Her vulpine eyes, though, were brilliant and wise.

  She came to stand before the prince, inspecting him. He tried to stand, but he had no strength left.

  “Who are you?” said the woman, in a tattered voice.

  The prince gave his name, with as much pride as he could muster, despite his weariness.

  “It was your arrow that pierced the heart of the great huntress.”

  “Yes. I hoped to kill her.”

  “Dark ones do not die. But we are grateful that she has finally been returned to Verloren.” The woman glanced behind her, and—

  Chapter 23

  Serilda yelped, jumping away from the unexpected, feather-soft touch along her wrist.

  “I’m sorry!” said Gild, launching himself backward. His leg hit the spinning wheel and sent it toppling onto its side.

  Serilda grimaced from the crash, her hands flying to her mouth.

  The wheel spun half a turn before coming to a stop.

  Gild looked from the fallen wheel, back up to Serilda, grimacing. “I’m sorry,” he said again. His face pinched—with an apology, and maybe embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have. I know. I couldn’t resist, and you were so lost in the story, and I…”

  Serilda’s hand went to cover the bare skin of her wrist, still tingling from his barely-there caress.

  Gild followed the movement. His face fell into something like despair. “You’re so … so soft,” he whispered.

  A clipped barking laugh escaped her. “Soft! What are you—” She stopped short, her gaze falling on the wall behind the toppled spinning wheel, and all the bobbins that had been empty when her story had begun. They now gleamed with spun gold, like gems in a jewelry case.

  She looked down at the floor, completely bare, but for her traveling cloak and the candlestick, still burning strong. “You’re finished.” She returned her focus to Gild. “When did you finish?”

  He considered for a moment. “Just now when Shrub Grandmother showed up. It is Shrub Grandmother, isn’t it?”

  His voice was serious, almost as though the wizened old woman really had appeared before them.

  Serilda pressed her lips against a smile. “Don’t spoil the story for yourself.”

  His smirk turned knowing. “It’s definitely her.”

  Serilda frowned. “I didn’t realize you’d stopped. I suppose I could have been helping more.”

  “You were quite engrossed. As was I—” His last word broke off into something strangled. Again his gaze dipped to her bare arm and suddenly he was turning away, his cheeks flaring red.

  Serilda thought of how often he seemed to find reasons to touch her, even when he didn’t have to. Brushing her fingers when she handed him the straw. Or the way he had nuzzled her hand the last time, and how the memory sent an unexpected thrill through her even now.

  She knew it was only because she was alive. She was not a dark one, cold as ice in the dead of winter. She was not a ghost, who felt like they would dissolve if you so much as breathed on them. She knew it was only because—to this boy who had not touched a mortal human in ages, if ever—she was a novelty.

  But that didn’t keep her nerves from shivering at every bit of unexpected contact.

  Gild cleared his throat. “I would say we have, maybe, half an hour before sunrise. Is there … more to the story?”

  “There’s always more to the story,” Serilda said automatically.

  A grin like the thaw of spring came over his face. Gild plopped himself down on the floor, crossing his legs and cupping his chin. He reminded her of her charges at the school, attentive and eager.

  “Go on, then,” he said.

  She laughed, then shook her head. “Not until you answer some of my questions.”

  He frowned. “What questions?”

  Serilda sat against the wall opposite him. “For starters, why are you dressed like you’re getting ready for bed?”

  He sat up straighter, then looked down at his clothes. He raised his arms, his sleeves billowing. “What are you talking about? It’s a perfectly respectable shirt.”

  “No, it isn’t. Respectable men wear tunics. Or doublets. Or jerkins. Not just a poufy blouse. You look like a peasant. Or a lord who’s lost his valet.”

  He guffawed. “A lord! That’s a fine idea. Don’t you see?” He stretched out his legs in front of him, crossing his ankles. “I’m the lord of this whole castle. What else could I possibly want?”

  “I’m being serious,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  “You make gold. You could be a king! Or at least a duke or an earl or something.”

  “Is that what you think? Dearest Serilda, the moment the Erlking learned of your supposed talent, he brought you here and locked you in the dungeon, demanding that you use your skill to benefit him. When people know that you can do this”—he gestured at the pile of gold-filled bobbins—“then that is all they care about. Gold and wealth and riches and what you can do for them. It is not a gift, but a curse.” He scratched behind his ear, taking the momentary pause to work a kink from his shoulders, before sighing. It sounded sad. “Besides. Nothing that I want can be purchased with gold.”

  “Then why do you keep taking my jewelry?”

  His smile returned, a little impish. “Magic requires payment. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not making it up just to steal from you.”

  “But what does that mean, exactly?”

  “Just what it says. No payment, no magic. No magic, no gold.”

  “Where did you learn that? And how did you come to have this gift? Or curse?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Like I said before, it might be a blessing from Hulda. Or maybe I was born with this magic? I haven’t the faintest idea. And learning to take payment for it…” He shrugged. “It’s just something that I know. That I’ve always known. At least as far as I can remember.”

  “And how does he not notice you?”

  His look turned questioning.

  “The Erlking is going through all this trouble to bring me here to spin this gold, when he has a gold-spinner living in his own castle. Does he not know about you?”

  Unexpected panic flared in Gild’s eyes. “No, he doesn’t. And he can’t. If you tell him…” He fumbled for words. “I’m trapped enough as it is. I won’t be enslaved to him as well.”

  “Of course I won’t say anything. He would kill me if he found out the truth, anyway.”

  Gild considered this, his momentary alarm fading.

  “But that doesn’t really answer my question. How can he not notice you? You’re … you’re not like the other ghosts.”

  “Oh, he notices me plenty.” This was said with a fair bit of smugness. “But I’m just the resident poltergeist, remember? He notices what I want him to notice, and I want him to notice that I am a complete and utter nuisance. I doubt it’s ever crossed his mind that I could be something more, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  Serilda frowned. It still struck her as unlikely that the king would be so ignorant about a gold-spinning ghost in his court, even a meddlesome one.

  Seeing her suspicion, Gild scooted closer. “It’s a big, crowded castle, and he avoids me whenever possible. The feeling is mutual.”

  “I suppose,” she said, sensing that there was more to their history, but that Gild didn’t care to reveal it. “And you’re sure you’re a ghost?”

  “A poltergeist,” he clarified. “It’s a particularly obnoxious kind of ghost.”

  She hummed, unconvinced.

  “Why? What do you think I am?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ve already concocted a dozen stories in my head about you, if not more.”

  “Stories? About me?” His expression brightened.

  “That can’t be a surprise. A mysterious stranger who appears magically whenever a fair damsel is in need of rescuing? Who dresses like a drunken earl, but can create gold at his fingertips. Who is flippant and aggravating, but somehow charming, too, when he wants to be.”

  He snickered. “It was a convincing start, but now I know you’re only mocking me.”

  Serilda’s pulse had started to flutter. Never had she been so candid with a boy before. A handsome boy, whose touches, no matter how faint, brought her whole body sparking to life. It would be easiest, she knew, to laugh her comment away. Of course she was making it up.

  But he could be charming. When he wanted to be.

  And she would never forget the feel of his arms around her, comforting her when she needed it most.

  “You’re right,” she said. “The evidence suggests that a maiden needn’t be fair at all in order for you to come to her rescue. Which, most confounding, only adds to the mystery.”