Page 73 of Gilded

“I’m sorry!” said Gild, launching himself backward. His leg hit the spinning wheel and sent it toppling onto its side.

Serilda grimaced from the crash, her hands flying to her mouth.

The wheel spun half a turn before coming to a stop.

Gild looked from the fallen wheel, back up to Serilda, grimacing. “I’m sorry,” he said again. His face pinched—with an apology, and maybe embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have. I know. I couldn’t resist, and you were so lost in the story, and I …”

Serilda’s hand went to cover the bare skin of her wrist, still tingling from his barely-there caress.

Gild followed the movement. His face fell into something like despair. “You’re so?…?sosoft,” he whispered.

A clipped barking laugh escaped her. “Soft! What are you—” She stopped short, her gaze falling on the wall behind the toppled spinning wheel, and all the bobbins that had been empty when her story had begun. They now gleamed with spun gold, like gems in a jewelry case.

She looked down at the floor, completely bare, but for her traveling cloak and the candlestick, still burning strong. “You’re finished.” She returned her focus to Gild. “When did you finish?”

He considered for a moment. “Just now when Shrub Grandmother showed up. It is Shrub Grandmother, isn’t it?”

His voice was serious, almost as though the wizened old woman really had appeared before them.

Serilda pressed her lips against a smile. “Don’t spoil the story for yourself.”

His smirk turned knowing. “It’s definitely her.”

Serilda frowned. “I didn’t realize you’d stopped. I suppose I could have been helping more.”

“You were quite engrossed. As was I—” His last word broke off into something strangled. Again his gaze dipped to her bare arm and suddenly he was turning away, his cheeks flaring red.

Serilda thought of how often he seemed to find reasons to touch her, even when he didn’t have to. Brushing her fingers when she handed him the straw. Or the way he had nuzzled her hand the last time, and how the memory sent an unexpected thrill through her even now.

She knew it was only because she was alive. She was not a dark one, cold as ice in the dead of winter. She was not a ghost, who felt like they would dissolve if you so much as breathed on them. She knew it was only because—to this boy who had not touched a mortal human in ages, if ever—she was a novelty.

But that didn’t keep her nerves from shivering at every bit of unexpected contact.

Gild cleared his throat. “I would say we have, maybe, half an hour before sunrise. Is there … more to the story?”

“There’s always more to the story,” Serilda said automatically.

A grin like the thaw of spring came over his face. Gild plopped himself down on the floor, crossing his legs and cupping his chin. He reminded her of her charges at the school, attentive and eager.

“Go on, then,” he said.

She laughed, then shook her head. “Not until you answer some of my questions.”

He frowned. “What questions?”

Serilda sat against the wall opposite him. “For starters, why are you dressed like you’re getting ready for bed?”

He sat up straighter, then looked down at his clothes. He raised his arms, his sleeves billowing. “What are you talking about? It’s a perfectly respectable shirt.”

“No, it isn’t. Respectable men wear tunics. Or doublets. Or jerkins. Not just a poufy blouse. You look like a peasant. Or a lord who’s lost his valet.”

He guffawed. “A lord! That’s a fine idea. Don’t you see?” He stretched out his legs in front of him, crossing his ankles. “I’m the lord of this whole castle. What else could I possibly want?”

“I’m being serious,” she said.

“So am I.”

“You makegold.You could be a king! Or at least a duke or an earl or something.”