Page 158 of Gilded

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 tothink.

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.