Page 30 of Gilded

Instead, when he was an arm’s distance from her, the boy raised his hands between them. She looked down. His fingers, pale and rough with calluses, weretrembling.

Serilda followed the movement of his hands as they came closer, nearing her shoulders. Inch by tentative inch.

“What are you doing?”

In answer, he settled his fingers onto her upper arms. The touch was impossibly delicate at first, then he let the weight of his hands settle along her arms, pressing gently against the thin muslin sleeves of her dress. It was not a threatening touch, and yet, Serilda’s pulse jolted with something like fear.

No—not fear.

Nerves.

The boy exhaled sharply, drawing her attention back to his face.

Oh wicked gods, thelookhe was giving her. Serilda had never been looked at like that before. She didn’t know what to make of it. The intensity. The heat. The raw astonishment.

He was going to kiss her.

Wait.

Why?

Nobody ever wanted to kiss her. There might have been a time once, with Thomas Lindbeck, but … that was short-lived and ended in catastrophe.

She was unlucky. Strange. Cursed.

And … and besides. She didn’t want him to kiss her. She didn’t know this boy. She certainly didn’tlikehim.

She didn’t even know his name.

So why had she just licked her lips?

That small movement brought the boy’s attention to her mouth, and suddenly, his expression cleared. He yanked his hands away and took the biggest step back that he could without once again crashing into the wall.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice rougher than before.

She couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be apologizing for.

He tucked his hands behind his back, as though he was afraid they would reach out for her again if left to their own devices.

“All right,” she breathed.

“You’re really alive,” he said. He said it as a statement of fact, but one he wasn’t sure he believed.

“Well … yes,” she said. “I thought that had been well established, what with the Erlking hoping to kill me at dawn and all that.”

“No. Yes. I mean, I knew that, of course. I just …” He rubbed the palms of his hands against his shirt, as if testing his own tangibility. Then he roughly shook his head. “I suppose I hadn’t fully considered what all it meant. Been a long time since I met a real mortal. Didn’t realize you’d be so … so …”

She waited, unable to guess at what word he was searching for.

Until finally, he settled on, “Warm.”

Her eyebrows rose, even as heat rushed unbidden into her cheeks. She tried to ignore it. “How long has it been since you met someone who wasn’t a ghost?”

His lips twisted to one side. “Not exactly sure. A few centuries, probably.”

Her jaw fell. “Centuries?”

He held her gaze a moment longer, before sighing. “Actually, no. The truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever met a living girl before.” He cleared his throat, distracted. “I can pass through ghosts when I want to. Just sort of assumed it’d be the same with … well, with anyone. Not that I do it a whole lot. Seems like poor etiquette, doesn’t it? Walking right through somebody. But I try to avoid touching them when I can. Not that I … I don’t dislike the other ghosts. Some make for fine company, surprisingly enough. But … to feel them can be …”