I screamed and sobbed, but it was only after the last few notes had fallen to the floor that the changelings released me.
“No matter,” said one cheerfully. “I’m sure you can re-create it, if you’ve the talent you claim.”
Then they abandoned me in the empty cavernous ballroom, the echoes of their spiteful laughter ringing in my ears.
* * *
I arrived at the shores of the Underground lake.
I had been stripped of everything—my confidence, my esteem, my music—but still I forced myself onward. They could take everything else away from me, but I had myself, entire. Elisabeth was more than the woman who bore the name, more than the notes she produced, more than the people who defi ed her. I was filled with myself, for they could not take my soul.
I glanced about. I had come to an unfamiliar shore, and could see no barge or skiff to bear me across. I stared across the great black expanse. Its glassy surface seemed deceptively calm, but beneath those obsidian depths, danger lurked.
The Lorelei.
As though called by my thoughts, glistening shapes rippled beneath the water. I squared my shoulders. I had come this far. I had faced the goblins. I had faced the changelings. I would face the Lorelei. If I could not row across, then I would swim.
There was no way through but down.
I took a step into the lake and gasped when the water touched my skin. It was cold; colder than ice, colder than winter, colder than despair.
The Lorelei swam closer, drawn to my presence like pikes scenting blood. One by one, they emerged, breaking free of the glassy black in a shower of glowing droplets.
They were so, so beautiful. Beautiful in the way the Goblin King was beautiful, a relentless symmetry to their features that was both alluring and terrifying. They were as naked as newborn babes, but their voluptuous, feminine shapes seemed molded by a hand that did not understand their function. So perfect, so flawless, nary a dimple or nipple or hair to betray any hint of humanity. Their flat black eyes focused on me, and they moved toward me with sinuous, flowing grace.
I was up to my waist in the water now. The closest Lorelei reached out with her hands, and my arms lifted of their own volition to meet hers. She smiled, row upon row of prickly teeth, and moved in to press that jagged grin against my skin.
The others swam close, fanning out around me, encircling me, entrapping me. Their hands stroked my face, my hair, my limbs, my waist. I was numb but I felt their fluttering touches slide up between the valley of my thighs, the ridge of my spine where it met the curve of my backside, the underside of my breasts. My body, so like theirs and not. One tangled her fingers in my hair, undoing the plaits I habitually wore in a coronet about my head, letting the dark locks fall into the water. The weight of my hair dragged me down like an anchor.
I don’t know when it happened, but suddenly, it was no longer my feet taking me farther and farther into oblivion. I was being pulled, dragged, coerced, caught in an undertow I had not sensed. I stopped, but the current around me was irresistible, and I began to struggle.
The Lorelei hissed, and the serenity surrounding us was shattered. They grabbed at whatever part of me they could reach, my chemise, my belly, my toes, my hair. They grabbed, and dragged.
I was submerged in darkness, broken only by wavering ripples of light as we disturbed the surface of the lake. I fought and kicked and clawed, but the Lorelei only bore down harder. The gleaming, glowing surface of the lake was growing farther and farther from reach. My aching lungs hitched, screaming for air they did not have.
But no. If I were to drown, then I would take as many as I could with me. I would not go quietly into the long darkness. I had not come so far to give up. I would go with fire and fanfare and a fight.
I grabbed at the Lorelei whose arms were locked about my waist. Her head was the closest to mine, and I wrapped my fingers in her hair, jerking her face hard toward mine. I did not know what I intended—to bite, to tear—but my lips found hers and I opened my mouth to the end.
A breath passed from her to me, and my lungs seized upon the air. Hot, humid, and moist, but air nonetheless.
And then it wasn’t the Lorelei with her arms about me, it was me clinging to her. She thrashed in my embrace, but I held on, Menelaus against Proteus, and I was the King of Sparta. With every kiss I stole, I drew another bit of breath, until at last the Lorelei returned me to the surface.
I broke through the water with a choking gasp, and I broke through alone. The Lorelei had vanished, but I was now caught in the grip of something just as terrifying: the rushing current.
“Help!” I called, but my cry was lost in the watery, gurgling rattle of my chest. “Help!”
But no one came.
I was tired, so tired, I could scarce keep my head above the water. But I would not succumb to fatigue. I had escaped near drowning by the Lorelei. I would escape this. The water battered and bashed me against hidden rocks, but despite the growing darkness in my head, despite the utter exhaustion in my body, I kept swimming. I kept breathing.
At last, the river slowed to a gentle crawl, a burbling brook that gave way to a still pond. The water pushed me against a rocky shore, and with a herculean effort, I managed to clamber out of the river, heedless of the cuts and scrapes and bruises on my body. I collapsed, coughing and retching, water running from my nose and mouth, still shimmering, still glowing, but tinged red with blood.
When I had coughed up the last of the water, I sat up. The world reeled, turning both black and sparkling at the edges.
Stay awake, I ordered myself. Stay alive.
I took a shuffling step forward, but if the mind was willing, the flesh was still weak. Darkness crashed down on me, and I remembered no more.