But I don’t get a reply, and I can’t see anything past the steam. It’s hot, cloying, and I realize that the water I’m submerged in feels like it’s heating up.
I look down as something coats my fingertips beneath the water, like the thick soap I poured in earlier to make bubbles. I lift my hand out of the tub, water dripping off, rippling around me where it lands.
Except when I hold my hand close to peer at it through the haze of the steam, I see that it’s not soap clinging to my skin.
All four of my fingertips are coated with liquid gold.
“No...”
My other hand comes up quickly, grabbing hold of my leaking fingers, squeezing them as if I can staunch the metallic drip.
But my left hand is seeping gold, too.
There’s a bright flare that makes me squint, and I turn to look up at the window. It’s lit up with daylight now, like the night was somehow blown away by the force of the storm.
Panic fuses to my pulse.
I shake my hands violently, but all that does is send golden droplets flying, some of it landing across my face like a splatter of paint.
“Shit.”
The gold starts to slip down my wrists, past my elbows, my shoulders, my breasts. I jerk upright, feet nearly slipping in the tub, my heart slamming against my chest like it’s trying to get out.
“No!” I shout, but the gold doesn’t listen.
More of it smears down my belly, slips down my legs, bleeds into the creases of my skin.
“Auren.”
My head snaps up, and there’s Midas, but he’s pissed. Furious. Enraged. His brown eyes don’t hold any comfort right now, and I know it’s my fault.
“Help me,” I cry.
Midas just watches as the gold spreads and spreads until it encases my body completely, like I’m mummified with it. I was gold before, but not like this. This is polluting me, like an infection spreading, taking over.
Nothing of me will be left.
A whimper escapes when I realize that the liquid is now hardening in place, gilding me into a solid statue.
“Midas!” I cry, a sob shaking the chords of my voice. “Midas, do something!”
But he shakes his head, eyes gleaming now, so clear that I can see the reflection of my body in them. He isn’t mad any longer, but the new expression on his face holds no comfort. If anything, it makes my fear worse.
“Keep going, Precious. We need more,” he says quietly, firmly.
I try to jerk my feet up, try to step out of the tub so I can run, but the gold has already hardened beneath the soles of my feet. It’s locked my ankles and knees, weighed down my legs. And the bathwater…it’s turned solid too.
I’m frozen in place.
With every frenzied breath I take, the gold that coats my skin becomes harder, thicker, stronger.
Tears began to fall from my eyes, but those are gold too. They spill over, dripping down like the melted wax of a candlestick, solidifying against my neck.
My ribbons are panicking, twitching behind me, but they’re heavy, soaked-through. Ends bent and sharp, they try to scrape off the hard layer from my skin like a chisel to stone, but they can’t. They can’t, and as soon as they touch the insidious coating, they get stuck, like ants to sap.
Seeing my ribbons curled at odd angles, stuck, trying to jerk free to no avail, it makes fear lock around my heart with a cold, merciless grip.
My terror-filled eyes snap up to Midas. “Do something!” I plead, but it’s a mistake.