Page 24 of Gilded

“You are a terrible liar.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“Go on. You’re wasting time.”

“You’re all so impatient,” she grumbled, ducking past him. “Don’t you have an eternity ahead of you?”

“Yes,” he said. “And you have until one hour to dawn.”

Serilda stepped through the cell door, bracing herself for the inevitable slam and locking of the grate. She’d pictured bloodstains on the walls and shackles on the ceiling and rats darting into the corners.

Instead, she saw … straw.

Not a tidy bale of it, but a messy pile, a full cartload’s worth. It was the source of the sweet aroma she’d noticed before, carrying the faint familiarity of harvest work in the fall, when all the town pitched in.

In the back corner of the cell there stood a spinning wheel, surrounded by piles of empty wooden bobbins.

It made sense, and yet—it didn’t.

The Erlking had brought her here to spin straw into gold, because once again her tongue had created a ridiculous story, meant to do nothing more than entertain. Well, in this case, to distract.

He was just giving her a chance to prove herself.

A chance.

A chance she would fail at.

Hopelessness had just begun to needle at her when the cell door slammed shut. She spun around, jumping as the lock thundered into place.

Through the grated window, the ghost peered at her with his good eye. “If it matters at all to you,” he said thoughtfully, “I actually hope you succeed.”

Then he yanked shut the wooden sash over the grate, cutting her off from everything.

Serilda stared at the door, listening to the retreat of his footsteps, dizzy with how quickly and completely her life had crumbled.

She had told her father it would be all right.

Kissed him goodbye, like it was nothing.

“I should have held him longer,” she whispered to the solitude.

Turning, she surveyed the cell. Her sleeping cot at home might have fit inside, twice side by side, and she could easily have touched the ceiling without standing on tiptoes. It was all made more cramped by the spinning wheel and bobbins stacked against the far wall.

A single pewter candlestick had been left in the corner near the door, far enough from the straw that it wouldn’t pose a hazard. Far enough to make the spinning wheel’s shadow dance monstrously against the stone wall, which still showed chisel marks from when this cell had been cut into the island’s rock. The flame might have been laced with magic, for it burned brighter than any candle she’d ever seen. Serilda thought of the wastefulness—a magic candle left to burn only for her, so she might complete this absurd task. Even normal candles were a valuable commodity, to be hoarded and preserved, to be used only when absolutely necessary.

Her stomach gurgled, and only then did she realize she’d forgotten the apple her father had packed inside the carriage.

At that thought, a stunted, panicky laugh fell from her lips. She was going to die here.

She studied the straw, toeing a few pieces that had drifted from the pile. It was clean straw. Sweet-smelling and dry. She wondered if the Erlking had ordered it harvested earlier that night, under the Hunger Moon, because she’d told him that gathering straw touched by the full moon made it better for her work. It seemed unlikely. Any straw gathered recently would still be wet from the snow.

Because, of course, the king did not believe her lies, and he was right. What he asked for could not be done. Or, at least, not by her. She had heard tales of magical ones who could do marvelous things. Of people who really had been blessed by Hulda. Who could spin not only gold, but also silver and silk and strands of perfect white pearls.

But the only blessing she carried was from the god of lies, and now her cursed tongue had ruined her.

How foolish she’d been to think for a moment that she had tricked the Erlking and gotten away with it. Of course he would realize that a simple village maiden could not possess such a gift. If she could spin straw into gold, her father would hardly still be toiling away at the gristmill. The schoolhouse would not need new thatching, and the fountain that stood crumbling in the middle of Märchenfeld’s square would have been repaired ages ago. If she could spin straw into gold, she would have ensured by now that her whole village prospered.

But she did not have such magic. And the king knew it.