Serilda, on the other hand, was so distracted she nearly toppled down a set of stairs. One of the maidens grabbed her elbow at the last second and pulled her back onto the path.

  They were standing at the top of an amphitheater cut into the side of a small valley. At the bottom was a circular pool, emerald green and dotted with lily pads. A grassy island in the center held a circle of moss-covered rocks. Two women were seated, waiting.

  Serilda gasped—with relief, and an unexpected amount of joy—to recognize Meadowsweet.

  The other was an elderly woman who sat cross-legged on her rock. Though, as Serilda was led down the steps, she realized that elderly could not be the right word. Ancient might be better, ageless better still. She was small, but broad, with a hunched back and wrinkles as deep as canyons cut into her pale face. Her white hair hung thin and tangled down her back, picking up twigs and bits of moss. She was dressed simply in layers of fur and dirt-smudged linen, though on her head was a delicate diadem with a large pearl resting against her brow. Her eyes were as black as her hair was white, and they stared unblinking at Serilda as she approached, in a way that made her stand straighter.

  “Grandmother,” said one of the maidens, “this is the girl who has caught the interest of Erlkönig.”

  Serilda couldn’t help it. A delighted smile stretched across her face. This was the leader of the moss maidens, the source of nearly as many fairy stories as the Erlking himself. The great, the ferocious, the most peculiar Shrub Grandmother.

  Pusch-Grohla.

  She did her best to curtsy. “This is incredible,” she said, with a bit of disbelieving laughter in her voice as she recalled the story of the prince and the gates of Verloren she’d been telling Gild. “I was just talking about you.”

  Pusch-Grohla smacked her lips a couple of times, then leaned her head toward Meadowsweet. Serilda imagined she was going to whisper something to the maiden, but instead, Meadowsweet demurely turned to the old woman and began picking through her knotted white hair. After a second, she picked something out and flicked it away toward the water. Lice? Fleas?

  Nothing was said while Meadowsweet dutifully found two more bugs, and the rest of the maidens who had led Serilda to this place fanned out and claimed stones around the circle, leaving Serilda standing in the middle.

  Once they were settled, Pusch-Grohla sniffed and sat up straight again. She never took her gaze from Serilda.

  When she spoke, her voice was thin as watered-down milk. “This is the girl who stuffed you into an onion cellar?”

  Serilda frowned. To say it that way made her sound like a villain, rather than the hero.

  “She is,” said Meadowsweet.

  Pusch-Grohla sucked on her front teeth for a moment, and when she spoke again, Serilda noticed that a few of those teeth were missing, and the ones she did have didn’t quite fit her mouth, or each other. As though they’d been borrowed and repurposed from a helpful mule. “Is there a debt owed?”

  “No, Grandmother,” said Meadowsweet. “We were happy to show our gratitude, although”—Meadowsweet glanced at Serilda’s throat, then down to her hand—“you do not wear our gifts?”

  “I have hidden them away for safekeeping,” she said, keeping her tone even.

  It wasn’t entirely a lie. Behind the veil, they were most securely hidden, and she knew Gild would keep them safe.

  Pusch-Grohla leaned forward, staring straight through Serilda in a way that reminded her of a hawk watching the skittering path of a mouse across the fields.

  Then she smiled. The effect was not so much jolly as disconcerting.

  It was followed by a loud, wheezing laugh, as she pointed a crooked finger with swollen knuckles toward Serilda. “You honor the god of lies with that clever mouth. But, child”—her countenance dissolved into sternness—“do not think to lie to me.”

  “I would not dare…,” said Serilda. She hesitated, not sure what to call her. “Grandmother?”

  The woman sucked her teeth again, and if she cared one way or the other what Serilda called her, it did not show. “My granddaughters gave gifts worthy of your assistance. A ring and a necklace. Very old. Very fine. You had them with you when Erlkönig summoned you on the Hunger Moon, and you have them with you no longer.” Her gaze turned sharp, almost hostile. “What did the Alder King give to you in exchange for these trinkets?”

  “The Alder King?” Serilda shook her head. “I didn’t give them to him.”

  “No? Then how is it you have spent three moons in his care, and yet you remain alive?”

  She looked briefly at Meadowsweet and the gathered maidens. There was not a friendly face among them, but she could not blame them for being mistrustful, especially knowing that the dark ones made a game of hunting them for sport.

  “The Erlking believes that I can spin straw into gold,” she started. “A blessing from Hulda. That was the lie I told him when I was hiding Meadowsweet and Parsley, yes, in an onion cellar. Three times now, he has summoned me to the castle in Adalheid and asked me to do just that, and threatened to kill me if I failed. But there is a … a ghost in the castle. A boy who is a true gold-spinner. In exchange for that magic, and for saving my life, I gave him the necklace and the ring.”

  Pusch-Grohla was silent a long time, while Serilda shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

  “And what did you give as payment on the third moon?”

  She stilled, holding the old woman’s gaze.

  Memories flashed in her thoughts. Searing kisses and caresses.

  But no. That wasn’t what she was asking, and it certainly hadn’t been payment for anything.

  “A promise,” she answered.

  “God-magic does not work on promises.”

  “Evidently it does.”

  Testy surprise flashed through Pusch-Grohla’s eyes, and Serilda shrank back a bit.

  “It was a promise for … for something very valuable,” she added, embarrassed to say more. She didn’t think she could adequately explain what had led to such a deal being struck, and she didn’t want Pusch-Grohla to see her as the sort of person who would carelessly bargain away her firstborn child.

  Even if she was. Evidently.

  She turned her attention to Meadowsweet. “I am sorry, though, if the necklace held special meaning for you. May I ask, who was the girl in the portrait?”

  “I do not know,” said Meadowsweet, with no apparent regret.

  Serilda flinched. It had not occurred to her that the portrait could hold as little sentimental meaning for the moss maiden as it had for her. “You don’t?”

  “No. I had that locket for as long as I can remember, and do not recall where it came from. As to its special meaning, I assure you, I value my life more.”

  “But … it was so beautiful.”

  “Not as beautiful as snowdrop flowers in winter,” said Meadowsweet, “or a newborn fawn taking its first shaky steps.”

  Serilda had no argument for this. “What of Parsley’s ring? It had a seal on it. A tatzelwurm entwined around the letter R. And I saw the seal on a statue in Adalheid Castle, too, and in the cemetery outside the city. What does it mean?”

  Meadowsweet frowned and looked to Pusch-Grohla, but the old woman’s face was blank as slate as she studied Serilda.

  “I don’t know that, either,” Meadowsweet answered. “If Parsley knew, she never said, but I don’t believe she was any more sentimental over that ring than I was about the necklace. When we venture into the world, we all know to keep trinkets with us, in case payment is required. They are to us as your human coins are to—”

  “This boy,” interrupted Pusch-Grohla, unnecessarily loud. “The one who spun the gold. What is his name?”

  It took Serilda a moment to change the direction of her thoughts. “He goes by Gild.”

  “You say he is a ghost. Not a dark one?”

  She shook her head. “Definitely not a dark one. The townspeople call him Vergoldetgeist. The Gilded Ghost. The Erlking calls him a poltergeist.”

  “If he is one of the Alder King’s dead, then the king controls him. He would not be fooled by this charade.”

  Serilda swallowed, thinking of her conversations with Gild. He seemed proud to be known as the poltergeist, but it was clear to them both that he was not like the other ghosts in the castle.

  “He is a prisoner in the castle, like the other spirits who have been trapped by the king,” she said slowly. “But he is not controlled by the king. He is not a servant like the others. He’s told me that he doesn’t know what he is, exactly, and I believe he is telling the truth.”

  “And he claims to have been blessed by Hulda?”

  “He … doesn’t know where his magic came from. But that seems to be the most likely possibility.”

  Pusch-Grohla grunted.

  Serilda wrung her hands. “He is one of many mysteries I’ve encountered during my time in Adalheid. I wonder if you might be able to shed light on one of the others?”

  One of the maidens made a derisive sound. “This is not a social call, little human.”

  Serilda felt her hackles rise, but she tried to ignore her. When Pusch-Grohla had no response, she dared to plunge ahead. “I have been trying to learn more about the history of Adalheid Castle, to find out what happened there. I know it used to be home to a royal family, before the Erlking claimed it for himself. I’ve seen their graves, and a statue of a king and queen. But no one knows anything about them. And you, Grandmother, are as old as this forest. Surely if anyone would remember something about the family who built the castle, or who lived there before the dark ones, it would be you.”

  Pusch-Grohla studied Serilda for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than Serilda had yet heard it.

  “I have no memories of royalty in Adalheid,” she said. “It has always been the domain of the Erlking and the dark ones.”

  Serilda clenched her teeth. That wasn’t true. She knew that wasn’t true.

  How could even this woman, as old as an ancient oak, not remember? It was as if entire decades, perhaps centuries, of the city’s history had been erased.

  “If you uncover a different truth,” Pusch-Grohla added, “you will tell me immediately.”

  Serilda sagged, wondering if she was imagining the troubled look in the woman’s sharp eyes.

  “Grandmother,” said one of the moss maidens, her voice thick with concern, “what possible use could Erlkönig have for this spun gold? Other than—”

  Pusch-Grohla lifted a hand, and the maiden fell silent.

  Serilda glanced around the circle, at their fierce and beautiful faces shadowed with worry. “Actually,” she said slowly, “I do have some idea what the king wants the gold for.”

  Reaching into her pocket, she took out the bobbin full of gold thread. Stepping forward, she held it out to Shrub Grandmother. The old woman tipped her head toward Meadowsweet, who took the bobbin and held it up before the woman’s eyes, turning it to catch the light.

  “He’s been taking these threads and braiding them together into ropes,” said Serilda.

  Around her, the maidens tensed, their concerned looks darkening.

  “Last night, the wild hunt used these ropes to capture a tatzelwurm.”

  Pusch-Grohla’s attention snapped back to her.

  “The king told me that spun gold is perhaps the only material that can hold magical creatures like that.”

  She opted not to mention how she had inadvertently told him where to find the beast.

  “Indeed,” said the woman, her voice brittle. “Blessed by the gods, it would be unbreakable.”

  “And … is it?” Meadowsweet asked hesitantly. “Blessed by Hulda, I mean.”

  Pusch-Grohla looked like she’d bitten a lemon as she glared at the spool of gold. “It is.”

  Serilda blinked. So Gild really had been god-blessed? “How can you tell?”

  “I would know it anywhere,” said Pusch-Grohla. “And I assure you, the Alder King will be using it to hunt more than the tatzelwurm.”

  “It’s this coming winter,” murmured Meadowsweet. “The Endless Moon.”

  It took Serilda a moment to understand what they were suggesting.

  The Endless Moon, when a full moon coincided with the winter solstice.

  She inhaled sharply.

  It had been nineteen years since the last one—the night that, supposedly, her father had helped the trickster god and wished to have a child.

  “You think he means to go after one of the gods,” she said. “He wants to make a wish.”

  Pusch-Grohla gave a loud snort. “A wish? Perhaps. But there are many reasons one might hope to capture a god.”

  Chapter 44

  “Grandmother,” said Meadowsweet, gripping the golden thread in both hands, “if he does try to make a wish—”

  “We all know what he would ask for,” muttered the maiden who had threatened Serilda before.

  “We do?” said Serilda.

  “No, Foxglove, I would not give him so much credit,” said Pusch-Grohla.

  “But he might,” said Meadowsweet. “We cannot know what he would want, but it is possible—”

  “We cannot know,” said Pusch-Grohla. “Let us not attempt to read his blackened heart.”

  Meadowsweet and Foxglove exchanged a look, but no one else spoke.

  Serilda looked between the three of them, her curiosity burbling. What would the Erlking wish for? He already had eternal life. An entourage of servants to do his bidding.

  But the memory of her own made-up story whispered to her, answering the question.

  A queen.

  A huntress.

  If this were a fairy tale, that is what he would wish for. True love must be victorious, even for a villain.

  But this was not one of her stories, and while the Erlking might be a villain, it was difficult to picture him using a god-given wish to return his lover from the underworld.

  What else?

  “How much gold has this poltergeist spun for him?” asked Pusch-Grohla.

  Serilda considered, picturing all that straw, all those bobbins. Stacks and stacks and stacks of them.

  “The gold from the first two nights made enough rope to capture the tatzelwurm,” she said. “And he told me that what was done last night would be enough to … to capture and hold even the greatest of beasts.”

  The greatest of beasts.

  Pusch-Grohla’s mouth twitched to one side. She took a hold of the walking stick beside her and thumped it on the ground. “He cannot be given any more.”

  Serilda clasped her hands in the same way she did when she was trying to speak patiently and practically with Madam Sauer. “I don’t disagree. But what would you have me do instead? He has threatened my life if I don’t do what he asks.”

  “Then forfeit your life,” said one of the moss maidens.

  Serilda gaped at her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Imagine what harm could come from Erlkönig claiming a god-wish,” the maiden said. “It is not worth the life of one human girl.”

  Serilda glowered. “Would you be so blithe if it were your life we were discussing?”

  The maiden lifted an eyebrow. “I am not blithe. Erlkönig has been hunting us and the creatures of this world for centuries. If we were to be captured, he would attempt to torture us into confessing the location of our home.” She gestured around to the surrounding glen. “And we would die with honor before speaking a word.”

  Serilda glanced over at Meadowsweet, who met her gaze without flinching.

  The Erlking had been hunting her and Parsley. He had mentioned having their heads to decorate his wall. But never had it crossed her mind that he might have tortured them first.

  “The hunt threatens all living things,” said Pusch-Grohla, “human and forest folk alike. My granddaughter speaks true. That gold is a weapon in his hands. We cannot allow Erlkönig to capture a god.”

  Serilda looked away. She knew they wanted her to swear that she would not give the king any more of what he wanted. That she wouldn’t ask Gild to help her. That she would accept death over aiding the king again.

  But she didn’t know if she could promise that.

  She glanced around the circle, taking in the assorted weapons propped against rocks and laid across laps. For the first time since coming here she wondered if she was safe in the presence of the moss maidens. She did not believe they intended her harm, but what would they do if she did not promise what they wanted? She had the sudden uncomfortable sensation that she’d unwittingly found herself caught in the middle of an age-old war.

  But if this was a war, what was her role to play in it?

  Shrub Grandmother muttered something to herself, too low for anyone to hear. Then she tipped her head toward Meadowsweet and gently knocked the end of her walking stick against her own scalp. Meadowsweet set to lousing her hair again, picking through for bugs while Pusch-Grohla considered.

  After four more critters had been flicked away, Pusch-Grohla straightened. “There is a rumor that he does not kill all the beasts he captures in the wood. That some are kept in his castle—for added sport, or breeding, or to train his hounds.”

  “Yes,” said Serilda. “I’ve seen them.”

  Pusch-Grohla’s expression darkened with thinly veiled loathing. “Does he hurt them?”

  Serilda stared, considering the small cages, the untended wounds, the way some of the creatures trembled in silent fear when the dark ones walked past. Her heart squeezed tight.

  “I think he might,” she whispered.

  “Those creatures were our responsibility, and we failed them,” said Pusch-Grohla. “Anyone who aids Erlkönig and his hunters must be our enemy.”

  She shook her head. “I have no desire to be your enemy.”

  “I care little of your desires.”

  Serilda’s hands clenched. That seemed to be a common theme among these age-old beings, regardless of which side of the war they fell on. Nobody cared for the mortals caught in the middle.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said weakly. “I have nothing else to offer as payment for the magic. Gild cannot continue to spin gold to save my life, and he won’t do the work for free.”