Long reign Queen Serilda.

  She stood dumbfounded, faced with the absurdity of this farce. The Erlking wanted this child as a gift for Perchta. But he had already cursed her, trapped her inside this castle. In eight months, he could take the child and she could do nothing to stop him. He could still tell everyone that the baby was his progeny.

  But why marry her? Why make her queen? Why put on this charade? Soon he hoped to bring Perchta back from Verloren, and clearly it was she who would be his true queen, his true bride.

  No—there was more to his intentions than simply wanting to give her newborn child to the huntress. She could feel it. A thread of warning curled in the pit of her stomach.

  But there was nothing she could do about it now. Once she had seen Gerdrut to safety, she would try to muddle through whatever secrets this demon still harbored. She had until the winter solstice to figure out how she would stop him.

  Until then, she would do what was asked of her. Nothing more. She certainly wasn’t going to make charmed eyes at him and swoon every time he entered a room. She wasn’t going to giggle and preen in his presence. She wasn’t going to pretend that she wasn’t a prisoner here.

  But she would lie. She would tell them all that he was the father of her child, if that’s what he asked.

  Until she could figure out how to free the spirits of these children, how to free Gild, how to free herself.

  How to kill the Erlking.

  As the chant rose in volume, he bent toward her, pressing a porcelain smooth, ever-cool cheek against hers. His lips brushed the corner of her ear and she fought down a shudder. “I have a gift for you.”

  He turned them back to face the steps. Her horrified gaze swept up to Gild, but his chin had fallen against his chest, strands of red hair hiding his face, almost golden in the sun.

  “Every queen requires an entourage,” said the king. He gestured toward the children, then curled his finger, summoning them forward.

  Hans straightened and put himself out in front of the others, clutching Anna’s hand.

  “Come now. Don’t be shy,” said the king, sounding almost sweet.

  Serilda knew he could force them to obey, but he waited for them to approach on their own. Hesitant, but with so much courage that Serilda wanted to pull each of them against her and scatter kisses atop their heads.

  “I give to you,” said the king, “your footman.” He gestured at Hans. “Your groom.” Nickel. “Your personal messenger.” Fricz. “And of course, every queen needs a lady-in-waiting.” He tucked a finger beneath Anna’s chin. She flinched, but he pretended not to notice. “How do you greet your queen, little servants?”

  The children looked wide-eyed at Serilda.

  “It will be all right,” she lied.

  Anna acted first, fumbling into a curtsy. “Your … Highness?”

  “Very good,” said the Erlking.

  The boys bowed uncomfortably. Serilda wanted this to be done with. This false spectacle, the appalling pretense. She wanted to go somewhere she could embrace them, tell them how sorry she was. That she would do anything she could to end this for them. She would not allow them to be trapped here forever in this castle, beholden to the Erlking. She wouldn’t.

  “Well?” said the king. “Are you satisfied?”

  She wanted to be sick all over him. Instead, she said, “I will be once I’ve seen Gerdrut go free.”

  “Ah yes, the small one. Thank you for reminding me. I give you my final betrothal gift.” He raised his voice. “Manfred? The girl.”

  A groan echoed to them from above and Serilda gasped, her attention darting back up to Gild. He still was not looking at her.

  At her side, Anna clasped her hand, her ghostly touch so shocking that Serilda almost pulled away.

  Anna looked up at her, tears glistening in her eyes. Serilda tried to smile, when she looked past the children and saw what Anna must have seen.

  The coachman was emerging from the crowd. He glanced from Serilda and the children to the king, and Serilda wondered if she was imagining the flash of resentment, even hatred, in his eye. Then he held his hand toward someone who was tucked amid the ghosts. A moment later, he was leading Gerdrut toward Serilda and the king.

  This time, Serilda did cry out, a scream that would echo in her thoughts for as long as she was trapped here.

  Gerdrut clasped the coachman’s hand, tears tracking down her cherub face, her silhouette fading at the edges. A hole where her sweet heart used to be.

  “I think,” added the king, “that she will make a fine chambermaid. Don’t you agree?”

  Serilda wailed, feeling as though all her insides had been torn out. “You promised. You promised!” She spun toward him, rage burning up every rational thought. “You cannot expect me to lie for you. I will never tell anyone that you are the fa—”

  His mouth descended on hers, one arm roping around her waist, pulling her against him.

  Her words were cut off into a smothered scream. She tried to shove at his chest, but it made little difference. His other hand dug into the hair at the base of her neck, immobilizing her as he broke the kiss.

  She wanted to retch in his face.

  Distantly, she heard the rattle of chains. Gild trying to get free.

  “I promised her freedom,” the Erlking murmured, his lips brushing hers with each movement. “And that is what I shall grant. Once you have fulfilled your end of the bargain and given me this child, I will release their spirits to Verloren.” He paused, pulling away so that he could hold her gaze. “Isn’t that what you want for them, my queen?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to respond. Fury was still pounding inside her skull, and all she wanted to do was claw that haughty smirk from his face.

  Taking her silence for agreement, the Erlking tipped down her head and placed another cool kiss against her brow.

  To their onlookers, it must have appeared a gesture of sweetest affection.

  They could not have seen the gloating laughter in his eyes as he whispered, “Long reign the queen.”

  Chapter 56

  The children had fallen asleep on top of the massive bed that once seemed like the grandest luxury. Serilda watched them now, recalling how giddy she’d been to see feathered pillows and velvet drapes. How she had marveled at all this castle had to offer.

  When this had all seemed a little bit like a fairy tale.

  How preposterous.

  She was grateful, at least, that sleep was still possible for them. She didn’t know if ghosts needed rest, but it was a small blessing to know that there would be moments of respite in this tragic captivity.

  She wasn’t sure if she needed rest. She could understand a bit more now, how Gild had known he was different. She was not dead. She was not a ghost, like the children, like the rest of the king’s servants.

  But what did that make her?

  Tired, she thought. She felt so very tired. Yet restless, too.

  She found herself thinking about the games that she had played when she was young with the other children in the village. Those whose parents hadn’t forbidden them from playing with her, that is.

  They were princes and princesses. Damsels and knights. They built castles of twigs and made woven crowns of bluebells and swanned around the fields as if they were nobles in Verene. They had imagined a life of jewels and parties and feasts—oh, the feasts they had dreamed up—the dances, the balls.

  Serilda had been so very good at dreaming. Even then, her peers were eager to hear her turn their simple musings into unparalleled adventures.

  But never had it crossed Serilda’s mind, not for the shortest swallow trill, that it might come true.

  She would live in a castle.

  She would be wed to a king.

  She would be wed to a monster.

  And, true, his court might be sumptuous in its own way. Feasting, dancing, merriment, and drink. She might even be given gifts and an imitation of romance—the king would have to feign some amount of adoration for her if he was to convince everyone that he was the father of her child. But she would be a prisoner more than a queen. She would have no power. No one would heed her commands or listen to her pleas. No one would help her, unless the king permitted it.

  A possession. He’d called her a possession, and that was only when she was the novel gold-spinner. Now she would be a wife, tied to him in whatever ceremony the dark ones used to commemorate such things.

  And amid all this turmoil was still the disbelieving joy, somehow impossible to tamp down. She was going to have a child.

  She would be a mother.

  Unless that child was ripped out of her arms and given to the huntress Perchta the moment it was born. The thought brought bile to her mouth.

  She sighed heavily and sat on the corner of the bed, careful not to jostle the children’s sleeping forms. As her fingers brushed a strand of hair back from Hans’s brow, then adjusted the blanket on Nickel’s shoulders, she hoped with all her heart that pleasant dreams would not elude them.

  “I will find a way to give you peace,” she whispered. “I will not let you toil here forever. And until that day comes, I promise, I will tell you the happiest of stories to take your minds away from all of this. Where the heroes are victorious. The villains vanquished. Where everyone who is just and kind and brave is granted a perfect finale.” She sniffed, surprised when another tear clung to her eyelids. She’d begun to think she was empty of them.

  She was tempted to lie down, curl her body into what little space was left for her, and try to let her thoughts settle with all that had happened in a short twenty-four hours.

  But she could not sleep.

  There was still something she had to do before this disastrous day was over.

  A wardrobe had been stocked with fine gowns and cloaks, all of them in tones of emeralds and sapphires and bloodred rubies. All much too fine for a miller’s daughter.

  What would her father think to see her in such things?

  No. She slammed her eyes shut. She could not think of him. She wondered if she would ever be able to properly mourn him. He was just one more jewel in her crown of guilt. One more person she’d failed.

  “Stop it,” she whispered, pulling a dressing gown from the wardrobe. She left the candle on the nightstand, so that if the children awoke they wouldn’t find themselves surrounded by darkness in an unfamiliar room.

  Then she slipped out of the tower. She was not sure how to get to the roof of the keep, but she was determined to follow every staircase until she found the right one.

  Except, as she rounded the bend of the spiraling steps, she spotted a figure leaning against the doorway.

  She froze, bracing one hand against the wall.

  Gild stared up at her, clutching a bundle of fabric in his arms. His sleeves were pushed up past his elbows and she could see lines of red welts where the gold chains had wrapped around him. There was tension in his shoulders. His expression was too careful, too wary.

  She wanted to rush into his arms, but they did not open to her.

  Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she found words. “I was coming to free you.”

  His jaw tensed, but a second later, his gaze softened. “I was starting to make a bit of a ruckus. Moaning. Chain-rattling. Typical poltergeist stuff. They finally got tired of listening to me and brought me down around sunset.”

  She eased down the steps. A finger reached for one of the marks on his forearm, but he flinched away.

  She pulled back. “How did they do it?”

  “Cornered me outside the tower,” he said. “They had the chains around me before I knew what was happening. I’ve never had to worry about that before. Being … trapped like that.”

  “I’m so sorry, Gild. If it wasn’t for me—”

  “You didn’t do this to me,” he interrupted sharply.

  “But the gold—”

  “I made the gold. I designed my own prison. How’s that for torture?” He looked briefly like he wanted to smile but couldn’t quite figure out how.

  “But if I’d told the truth … at anytime, if I’d just told the truth, rather than asking you to spin the gold, to keep coming back, to keep helping me—”

  “Then you would be dead.”

  “And those children would be alive…” Her voice cracked. “And you wouldn’t have been chained to a wall.”

  “He cut out their hearts. He’s the murderer.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t try to convince me that I’m not at fault for this. I tried to escape, even though I knew … I knew what he was capable of.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment.

  “I should go,” he finally whispered. “The king might not like to see his future bride cavorting with the resident poltergeist.” The bitterness was tangible, his mouth twisting as if he’d bitten something sour. “I just wanted to bring you this.” He thrust the fabric toward her, and it took Serilda a moment to recognize her cloak.

  Her old, ratty, stained, beloved cloak.

  “I patched the shoulder,” he said sadly, as Serilda took it from him. Unfolding it, she saw that the place where the drude had torn the fabric had indeed been mended with a square of gray fabric, almost the same color as the original wool, but softer to the touch.

  “It’s dahut fur,” he said. “We don’t have any sheep here, so…”

  She squeezed the cloak to her chest for a moment, then slung it over her shoulders. Its familiar weight was an immediate comfort. “Thank you.”

  Gild nodded, and for a moment she worried that he really would go. But then his shoulders sank and, resigned, he opened his arms.

  With a grateful sob, Serilda fell into them, tying her hands around his back, feeling the warmth of his hold spreading through her.

  “I’m scared,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  “I am, too,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since I felt scared like this.” His hands rubbed her arms, his cheek pressed to her temple. “What happened in that throne room? When he dragged you away, I thought”—emotion clogged his throat—“I thought he’d kill you for sure. And then you both come back out and suddenly he’s calling you our queen? Saying you’re going to marry him?”

  She grimaced. “I hardly understand it myself.” She clawed her fingers into Gild’s shirt, wanting to stay here forever. To never face the reality of life in this castle, at the side of the Erlking. She couldn’t begin to fathom what future awaited her or the children she’d left behind in that room.

  “Serilda,” said Gild, more sternly now. “Truly. What happened in that throne room?”

  She pulled away so she could see his face.

  He deserved to know the truth. She was going to have a baby—and he was the father. The king wanted to keep it for his own. He wanted to bring Perchta back from Verloren, and he wanted to gift her the newborn child that was growing in Serilda’s womb.

  Their child.

  But she thought of the children with the holes in their chests. How much they’d already suffered.

  If the king ever found out she had not lived up to their agreement, those children would be made to suffer for it. He would never let their spirits be free.

  She chose her words carefully, watching Gild’s reaction, hoping that he might be able to see the truth hidden in her lies.

  “I managed to convince him that I cannot spin gold anymore, but that … my child, when I have a child, will inherit Hulda’s gift.”

  His brow furrowed. “He believed that?”

  “People believe what they want to believe,” she said. “Dark ones must not be so different.”

  “But what does that have to do with…” His eyes darkened with dismay. When he spoke again, there was a new edge in his voice. “Why does he wish to marry you?”

  She shuddered at the implication. At the lie she needed him to believe. “So that I can have a child.”

  “His child?”

  When she didn’t answer, he snarled and started to pull away. Serilda tightened her grip on his shirt, clinging to him.

  “You cannot think that I want this,” she snapped. “I should hope you know me better than that.”

  He hesitated. The flood of anger gave way to hurt. But then, finally—horror.

  Understanding.

  “He’s already trapped you. Hasn’t he?”

  Biting the inside of her cheek, Serilda pulled away from him so she could lift the sleeve of the dressing gown, showing him the hole where the arrow had pierced her.

  His expression crumbled. “Part of me feels like this should make me happy, but I don’t … I don’t want this for you. I would never want this for you.”

  She swallowed. She’d hardly had time to think of what it would mean. To be the queen, locked always behind the veil in this soulless castle, her only company the undead, the dark ones … and Gild.

  He was right. A part of her might have found some comfort in that, but it was buried so deep it was hard to know for sure. This would not be a life, not one she would ever have chosen for herself.

  And she had to assume it would be short-lived. Once the baby was born, and the king saw that Serilda still had no magic, he would rid himself of her without hesitation. He would take her newborn, and if he was successful in capturing a god and wishing Perchta back to this world, he would give that innocent little life to her. The mistress of cruelty and violence and death.

  Except …

  Strangely, unfathomably, this child was already spoken for. She had already promised her firstborn to another.

  What did that mean for her bargain with the king?

  What did her bargain with the king mean for Gild?

  “Gild, there’s something else I have to tell you.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “There’s more?”

  “There’s more.” She took his face into her hands. Studying him.

  He tensed. “What is it?”

  She took a breath. “I know how the story ends. Or … how it ended.”

  “The story?” He looked baffled. “About the prince? And the kidnapped princess?”