Chapter 40

  The creature was three times as long as Serilda was tall, most of its body consisting of a long serpentine tail covered in shimmering silver scales that whipped and writhed as the hunters yanked on the ropes. It had no hind legs, but two front arms, each with thick corded muscles and three claws that looked like daggers in the torchlight as it scraped at the earth, trying to get purchase against its captors. Its head was distinctly feline, like an enormous lynx, with fierce, slitted yellow eyes, long silken whiskers, and tufts of black hair sprouting from its wide pointed ears. Its mouth and nose had been muzzled, but it could still emit that grating screech and deep, throaty growls. A wound on one side of its body was steaming and oozing blood that, in this light, appeared to be as green as the grass.

  “Prepare the cage!” shouted a woman, and Serilda recognized Giselle, the master of the hounds. One of the hunters heaved open the door to the enormous empty cage.

  Serilda stepped back, not wanting to be anywhere near the tatzelwurm if it managed to break free—and it seemed to have a good chance.

  “Breathtaking, isn’t it?” said the Erlking. She glanced up at him, speechless. His eyes were fixed on the capture, his expression glowing. He appeared almost gleeful, his pointed teeth revealed behind upturned lips, his blue-gray eyes mesmerized by the beast.

  Serilda realized that she had been wrong to think he was being kind to her before. He’d merely wanted to gloat about his new trophy. And who better to admire its awe-inspiring nature than a mortal peasant?

  As the hunters hauled the tatzelwurm into the cage, the Erlking turned his smile toward Serilda. “We owe you our gratitude.”

  She nodded dully. “Because I told you where to find it.” She tried not to let on how this baffled her. She’d made it up. She’d been lying.

  But evidently, she’d also been right.

  “Yes,” said the Erlking, “but also because without your gift, we would have had to leave the creature paralyzed. As my wyvern, if you’ve seen it. A fine decoration this would make, but … I prefer to enjoy my captures in a more spirited state. Full of vigor. But we could not have transported it so far without your precious gift.”

  “What gift?” she said, having no earthly idea what he was talking about.

  He laughed merrily.

  The tatzelwurm was dragged into the cage. The hunters slipped back out, locking the beast in, leaving only the master of the hounds inside. She set about undoing the ropes that were still tied around the creature’s body.

  Ropes that glittered when they caught the light of the torches.

  Serilda clamped her teeth together to hold back a cry.

  They were not ropes, but chains.

  Slender golden chains.

  “The thread you made was barely enough to braid together into these ropes,” said the king, confirming her suspicions. “But what you provided us with tonight should be enough to capture and hold even the greatest of beasts. This was a test, to see if the chains would serve their purpose. As you can see, they worked magnificently.”

  “But … why gold?” she said. “Why not steel or rope?”

  “Not gold,” he said, a lilt in his voice. “Spun gold. Did you not know the worth of such a god-gift? It is perhaps the only material that can bind a creature of magic. Steel or rope would have no chance on a creature such as this.” He chuckled. “Magnificent, isn’t it? And finally mine.”

  She swallowed hard. “What are you planning to do with it?”

  “That remains to be seen,” he said. “But I have some grand ideas.” His voice had darkened, and Serilda pictured the tatzelwurm stuffed and mounted, another piece in the king’s collection.

  “Come,” he said, offering Serilda his elbow. “These gardens are not easily navigated on the other side of the veil, and sunrise draws near.”

  Serilda hesitated for perhaps a moment too long before she accepted his arm. She looked back only once, as the master of the hounds was slipping out of the cage with her arms full of chains. Perhaps she was also the gamekeeper, Serilda thought, now that she knew there was game to be kept. As soon as she was out, they slammed shut the cage door and locked the heavy latches.

  The tatzelwurm released another earsplitting wail. Before it had sounded furious. Now Serilda heard an agony of a new sort. Devastation. Loss.

  Its gaze fell on Serilda. There was clarity in its slitted eyes. Fury, yes, but also brilliance, an understanding that seemed unnatural on its feline features. She could not help but feel that this was not some mindless beast. This was not an animal to be kept in a cage.

  This was a tragedy.

  And it was her fault, at least in part. Her lies had led the king to the tatzelwurm. Somehow, she had done this.

  Serilda turned away and let the king lead her back down the path, tidy garden patches spread out to either side and the castle glowing before them. Over the eastern wall, a hint of rose touched the sparse purple clouds.

  “Ah, we have dallied too long,” said the king. “Forgive me, Lady Serilda. I do hope you can find your way.”

  She looked up at him, a new trepidation filling her. For as much as she hated this man—this monster—at least she knew what sort of monster he was. But on the other side of the veil, the castle held too many secrets, too many threats.

  As if sensing her mounting fear, the Erlking gently pressed his hand over hers.

  As if he meant to comfort her.

  Then a beam of golden sunlight struck the tallest tower of the keep and the king vanished like mist. All around her, the gardens grew wild and unkempt, the trees and shrubs overgrown, the boxwoods sprawling in all directions. The path beneath her feet was overtaken by vines and weeds. She could still make out the pattern of square patches, and some of the stonework still stood—a fountain here, a statue there—but always faded and chipped, some having toppled over.

  The stately castle was reduced to ruins once more.

  Serilda sighed. She was shivering again, and though the morning was damp, she thought it was as much from the nearness of the Erlking a moment ago.

  Could he still see her from his side of the veil, like looking through a window? She knew that Gild could. After all, he had protected her from the drude that first morning. Perhaps all the inhabitants of this castle could watch her, when she saw nothing but disarray and abandonment. With Gild, the idea was comforting. With the others, not so much.

  Knowing that in any minute the screams would begin, Serilda lifted her skirts and hurried along the path, dodging the overgrowth. The gardens might be forsaken, but they were full of life. Many of the plants had thrived and germinated, untended, and not all of them weeds. The air smelled of mint and sage, the aromas made more pungent by the wet earth, and she noticed many herbs running amok through the once-tidy beds. A variety of birds perched in the tree branches, whistling their morning songs, or hopped about on the ground, picking at worms and critters. In her hurry, Serilda startled a grass snake, which in turn startled her as it slithered fast into a patch of heather.

  She was nearly to the castle steps when Serilda tripped. She lurched forward, landing hard on her hands and knees with a grunt. Rolling onto her backside, she looked down at her palm, which had landed on a musk thistle. Grumbling, she picked out the tiny spines, before rolling up her skirt to check her knees. Her left was barely bruised, but the right was bleeding from a shallow scrape.

  “Not nice,” she snapped, kicking her heel at the rock that had tripped her, hidden beneath an overgrown weed. The rock, almost perfectly round, rolled away a couple of feet.

  Serilda sat up straighter.

  Not a rock.

  A head. Or at least, the head of a statue.

  She stood and approached the stone. After rolling it over with her toe to make sure there were no deadly insects hiding on it, she stooped and picked it up.

  It was worn from the weather, the nose broken off, along with a few pieces of a headdress. Its features were feminine, with a full, stern mouth and delicate ears. Turning it over, Serilda saw more clearly from the back of the head that it was not a headdress she wore, but a crown, which time had chipped away to a circlet of uneven stubs.

  Serilda looked around, searching for the statue’s body, and spotted a toppled figure behind a shrub that had yet to sprout leaves for the season. At first, it looked like just a mound of rock covered in moss, but on closer inspection, she saw it was two figures standing side by side. One in a gown. The other in a long tunic and fur-trimmed mantle. Both were headless.

  More searching revealed a broken scabbard and … a hand.

  Setting down the head, Serilda picked up this lost limb, broken off just above the wrist and missing the thumb and first two fingers. She brushed away a clump of lichen that clung to its surface.

  Her eyes widened.

  On the hand’s fourth finger was a ring.

  She looked closer, squinting. Though worn by time, the ring’s seal was recognizable.

  The R and the tatzelwurm.

  Had Gild seen this statue before? Was that why the symbol had been familiar to him?

  Or was there a deeper meaning here? If this seal was on the ring of a statue—a queen’s statue, from the looks of the crown—it might have been a family crest. That matched her theories about the gravestones.

  But what royal family?

  And what had become of them?

  Serilda realized, peering around the garden, that she was near the same plot of land where the statue of the Erlking had stood on the other side of the veil.

  That statue would have been right … there.

  Serilda used the stone hand to peel back a thick covering of vines, and it was right where she thought it would be. The statue’s base, where she assumed this king and queen, now broken to pieces, had once stood regally above their gardens.

  There were words carved into it.

  Excitement skittered through her. Serilda cleared away the grime and debris, using her breath to blow away the layers of dust that filled up the engraving, until finally she could read the words.

  THIS STATUE ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE ASCENSION OF

  QUEEN

  AND HER HUSBAND

  KING

  THEIR MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTIES

  TO THE THRONE OF ADALHEID

  She read them again.

  And again.

  That was it?

  No—there should be names.

  She felt around the blank plains of the stone, but there were no more words.

  Queen and King who?

  Serilda traced the words with her thumb, then brushed her fingers against the wide-open spaces where names should have been.

  It was nothing but solid stone, smooth as glass.

  Which was when she heard the first scream.

  Disgruntled, Serilda picked up her skirts and fled.

  Chapter 41

  Clouds had swept in and it had started to rain again. Serilda sat at the edge of the dock, her feet dangling above the water, mesmerized by the faint droplets making infinite rings across the surface. She knew she should go back to the inn. Her dress was soaked through and she had started shivering some time ago, especially without her beloved cloak. Lorraine would be worried, and Leyna would be eager to hear her tell of another night in the castle.

  But she could not bring herself to get up. She felt like if she only stared at the castle long enough, it might spill out some of its secrets to her.

  She yearned to go back. Was tempted to cross that bridge even now. To take her chances with the monsters and the ghouls.

  But that was a fool’s mission.

  The castle was dangerous, no matter which side of the veil she was on.

  A flock of black birds rose up above the ruins, cawing at some spotted prey. Serilda stared at them, watching their black bodies swirl and dive before they settled back down out of sight again.

  She sighed. Nearly two weeks had passed since Eostrig’s Day and the Feast of Death and all she’d learned was that the Erlking was using the spun gold to hunt and capture magical creatures, and that there definitely had been a royal family who once inhabited this castle but somehow they seemed to have been erased from history, and that her feelings for Gild were …

  Well.

  More intense than she’d realized.

  A part of her wondered if she had been too hasty last night. If they had been too hasty. What had passed between them had been …

  The perfect word eluded her.

  Maybe the word was perfect. A perfect fantasy. A perfect moment caught in time.

  But it had also been unexpected and sudden, and when she woke to find Gild gone and the Erlking towering over her, that illusion of perfection dissolved.

  There was nothing about her growing intimacy with Gild that was perfect. She needed him if she was to survive the Erlking’s demands. She was constantly indebted to him. She’d paid him with her two most valuable belongings and now the promise of her firstborn child, and regardless of whether or not it was the magic that demanded such sacrifices, it didn’t seem like a basis for an enduring relationship.

  They had gotten carried away, that was all. A boy and a girl who had been given few opportunities for romance, overcome with fervid desire.

  Serilda blushed deeply at having thought those words.

  Overcome with … with heightened longing.

  That sounded a bit more respectable.

  They were hardly the first couple to tumble into bed together—or, in their case, an old settee—with little forethought. And they would by no means be the last. It was one of the favorite pastimes of the women in Märchenfeld, to tsk and tut over which unwed boys and girls had become, in their opinion, a little too close. But it was relatively harmless gossip. There was no law against it, and if pressed, most of those same women would gladly talk about their first tumble, with a smidgen of roguish, wanton pride, and always followed up with the disclaimer that it was all a long time ago, before they met the love of their life and settled down in marital bliss.

  Serilda knew that not every first intimacy was a happy one. She had heard tales of men and women alike who had believed themselves in love, only to later find those feelings were unrequited. She knew there could be shame attached to giving so much of oneself. She knew there could be regrets.

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to determine whether she felt any shame. Whether she had regrets.

  And the more she thought of it, the more it became clear that the answer was … no.

  Not yet, at least.

  Right now, she just wanted to see him again. Kiss him again. Hold him again. Do … other things with him. Again.

  No. Not ashamed.

  But she couldn’t fulfill any of those wishes. And if there were any tricky, difficult feelings, that was the source of them. He was trapped behind the veil, and she was here, staring at a castle where ghosts moaned and cried and suffered through their deaths over and over again.

  A breeze kicked up from over the water. Serilda shuddered. Her dress was soaked, her hair saturated. Little droplets had begun to slide down her face.

  A fire would be nice. Dry clothes. A cup of warm cider.

  She should go.

  But instead of getting up, she tucked her hands into her dress pockets.

  Her fingers wrapped around something and she gasped. She’d forgotten all about it.

  She pulled out the bobbin, half expecting to see it wound with scratchy straw. But no, she was holding a handful of fine spun gold.

  She laughed with surprise. It felt a little bit like a gift, even if, technically, she had stolen it.

  A new sound intruded on her thoughts. A jangle. A clatter.

  Serilda hid the bobbin against her body and glanced around. There were fishing boats out on the lake, their crews casting nets and lines, occasionally hollering information at one another that Serilda couldn’t make out. The road at her back sported a handful of carts, their wheels rattling loudly on the cobblestones. But with the dreary weather, the town was mostly quiet.

  There it was again—a musical, hollow jingle, a bit like wind chimes.

  It sounded close.

  As if it were coming from under the dock.

  Serilda had just begun to tip forward to peer over the edge when a hand appeared a few steps away from her, gripping the wooden boards. A puddle of lake water splattered around brownish-green skin. The hand was made of thick knobby fingers connected by slimy webbing.

  Serilda gasped and lurched to her feet.

  The hands were followed by enormous buglike eyes peering over the dock, glowing faintly yellow. A patch of river-weed hair clung to an otherwise bald, bulbous head.

  Its eyes landed on Serilda and she took another step back. She tucked the bobbin of gold thread back into her pocket, then cast around for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing, not even a stick.

  The creature threw its elbows up onto the dock and began to shamble up.

  Should she run? Call for help?

  Despite the way her heart was racing, the creature was not particularly threatening. As it emerged onto the dock, she could see it was the size of a young child. And yes, it was a strange, hideous thing, with lumps and bulges all along a slimy body, and sinewy froglike legs that kept it lowered into a crouch. She would have thought for sure it was some odd animal born of a forest swamp, except that it was not entirely naked. It wore a coat crafted of woven grasses and covered in small shells. It was the shells that clacked and jingled with every move it made.

  Except now, it had fallen silent. Motionless. Its mouth, which stretched wide across its face, stayed in a flat line. Studying her.

  She studied it back, her pulse steadying.

  She knew this creature.

  Or, at least, she knew what it was.

  “Schellenrock?” she whispered. A river bogeyman, usually harmless, most notable for the coat of shells that chimed like little bells wherever it went.

  Not malicious.

  At least, not in any of the stories she’d ever heard. Sometimes it even helped lost or weary travelers.