Page 38 of Gilded

Serilda tensed.

The Erlking gave her a dismissive look, before his teeth, faintly sharpened, glinted in the torchlight. “She may rest in the north tower until sunrise. I’m sure she is quite exhausted from her toils.”

The king departed, once again leaving her alone with the coachman.

He met her gaze, that smile returning. “Well, I’ll eat a broom. I thought there might be more to you than meets the eye.”

Serilda returned the smile, unable to tell if he was making light of his own missing eyeball. “I like to surprise people when I can.”

Serilda gathered up her cloak and followed him from the dungeons. Up spiraling steps and along narrow halls. Past tapestries, antlers, disembodied animal heads. Swords and axes and enormous chandeliers dripping with dark wax. The overall effect was one of mixed gloom and violence, which must have suited the Erlking fine. When they passed a narrow window inlaid with leaded diamonds of glass, Serilda saw an indigo sky.

Dawn was approaching.

Never had she gone an entire night without sleep, and her exhaustion was overwhelming. Her lids felt almost impossible to keep open as she trudged behind the apparition.

“Am I still a prisoner?” she asked.

It took the ghost a long time to answer.

An unnervingly long time.

Until, at some point, she realized that he did not intend to answer at all.

She frowned. “I suppose a tower will be better than a dungeon,” she said through a thick yawn. Her body felt cumbersome as the ghost led her up another stairwell and through a low arched door, into a sitting area connected to a bedchamber.

Serilda stepped inside. Even with her bleary-eyed weariness, she felt a twinge of awe. The room was notcozy,but there was a dark elegance that stole her breath. The windows were hung with lace curtains, black and delicate. An ebony washstand held a porcelain water pitcher and bowl, both painted with wine-red roses and large, lifelike moths. A small side table sat beside the bed, holding a burning green candle and a vase with a tiny bouquet of snowdrops, nival flowers with pretty, bowed heads. A fire roared in the hearth, and over the mantel hung an ornately framed painting of a brutal winter landscape, dark and desolate beneath a glowing moon.

Capturing her attention most, though, was the four-poster bed, wrapped on all sides by emerald-green drapes.

“Thank you,” she breathed, as the ghost lit the candle beside the bed.

He bowed and started to leave the room.

But he paused at the door. His expression was wary as he glanced back at her. “Have you ever watched a cat hunting a mouse?”

She blinked at him, startled that he would encourage conversation.

“Yes. My father used to keep a mousing cat for the mill.”

“Then you know how they like to play. They will let the mouse go, allow it to think, however briefly, that it is free. Then they will pounce again, and again, until they eventually grow bored and devour their prey bit by bit.”

Her chest tightened.

The ghost’s voice carried little emotion, even as his eye clouded with sorrow. “You asked if you were still a prisoner,” he said. “But we areallprisoners. Once His Darkness has you, he does not like to let you go.”

With these eerie words hanging in the air, he respectfully inclined his head again and departed.

He left the door open.

Unlocked.

Serilda had only enough presence of mind to know that she might be able to escape. This might be her only chance.

But her slowing pulse told her it was as impossible as spinning straw into gold.

She was desperate for sleep.

Serilda shut the bedroom door. There was no lock, not on the outside to keep her in. Not on the inside to keep others out.