And then he kissed me.
I closed my eyes and waited, waited for the fires within me to ignite. I had imagined, dreamed of, and yearned for this moment for a long time: the moment Hans would take me in his arms and press his lips to mine. Yet in the precise moment it came to pass, I felt cold. I could feel his lips, his breath, and the tentative brush of his tongue against mine, but he aroused no emotion save vague surprise and detached curiosity.
“Liesl?”
Hans had pulled away, trying to read my expression. I thought of Käthe, but it was not the shape of my sister’s body that lay between us.
You might prefer the pretty lie to the ugly truth, the Goblin King had said.
I had. This entire life was a pretty lie, and I had thought myself strong enough to resist it. What a fool I’d been, to fall for the Lord of Mischief’s tricks.
“Liesl?” Hans repeated, hesitant and unsure. This was all a lie, but what a beautiful, beautiful lie it was.
So I kissed him back.
In the dark of the night, with my back turned to my sister so she would not notice, I had pretended to feel Hans’s hands on me, his fingers questing for all the secret hollows and crevices of my body. I imagined his lips and tongue and teeth, I imagined desire so forceful he nearly burst with it, matching the roughness in my restless limbs with his own violence.
The intensity of my kisses startled him, his surprise resonating through him from head to toe. He released me.
“Liesl!”
“Was this not what you wanted?” I asked.
“Yes, it is, but—”
“But what?”
“I didn’t expect you to be so forward.”
Somewhere, deep in the forest, I thought I could hear an echo of the Goblin King’s laugh.
“Is this not what you wanted?” I repeated, angrily wiping at my mouth.
“Of course,” Hans replied, but I heard the uncertainty in his voice. The fear, the disgust. “Of course it is, Liesl.”
I shoved him away. Fury unfurled from me, a rising wave of frustration.
“Liesl, please.” Hans grabbed my sleeve.
“Let me go.” My voice was as dead as I felt inside.
“I’m sorry. I just—I just thought you were pure. Chaste. Not like all those other girls, easily spent, easily satiated.”
I went rigid. Käthe.
“Oh?” I asked tightly. “What other girls, Hans?”
His brows furrowed. “You know,” he said vaguely. “The others. But they don’t matter to me, Liesl. They’re not the sort of girls you marry.”
I slapped him. I had never raised my hand against anyone in my life, but I hit him with all the strength I had. My palm stung where it struck his cheek.
“And what sort of girl am I?” I asked in a low voice. “What sort of girl do you marry, Hans?”
He sputtered, but did not form a response.
“When you said pure, you meant plain. When you said chaste, you meant ugly.”
My words hit him in all their hideous truth, exposing him for what he truly was. I half expected, half wanted Hans to react, to grab my arm and tell me I was overreaching my bounds. But instead he stumbled back, his hands going limp, submissive.
My lip curled. “I wanted you once,” I said. “I thought you were a worthy man, Hans. And deep down, I think you are. But you are not worthy of me. All you are is a pretty lie.”
Hans reached for me, but I kept my hands to myself.
“Liesl—”
I looked him straight in the eye. “What was it your father used to say?”
Hans said nothing. He turned his head away.
“What’s the use of running, if we are on the wrong road?”
THE UGLY TRUTH
I ran straight to Constanze’s room.
I should have gone to my grandmother before. Gone the moment I returned from the woods, gone the moment I knew Käthe was stolen. Instead, I had let my grandmother hover on the edges of my awareness like a ghost, unable or unwilling to face the ugly truth. Guilt crawled up my throat, leaking from my eyes.
The door to her quarters was shut. I raised a hand to knock when a querulous voice called, “Well, come in, girl. You’ve dawdled long enough.”
It was true.
I pushed open the door. Constanze sat in her chair by the window, looking out into the forest beyond.
“How did you know I—”
“Those of us touched by the hand of Der Erlkönig recognize his own.” She turned to face me, her eyes dark and sharp. “I’ve been expecting you for weeks.”
Weeks. Had it truly been that long? I tried to count the days I had lived in this false reality, but they blurred together, connecting seamlessly without end.
“Then why not come seek me?” I asked.
Constanze shrugged. “It is not for me to meddle in his affairs.”
Angry words beat against my lips. I swallowed them down, but a few emerged as a choked, incredulous laugh.
“And you would have him change the world as you know it?” I asked. “You would let Der Erlkönig win?”
“Win?” She thumped the floor with her cane. “There is no winning with Der Erlkönig. Or losing. There is only sacrifice.”
“Käthe is not a sacrifice!”
My sister’s name boomed like a thunderclap between us. I felt the seams of this false reality come apart at her name, tearing holes in the fabric of my confusion. Käthe. I remembered her sunshine hair and bell-like laugh, her jealousy of Josef and her admiration of me, the way only a little sister could admire me. Grace, she had said. Cleverness and talent. That’s much more enduring than beauty. I thought of her thousand thoughtless hurts and kindnesses and the ache of missing my sister, muffled by misdirection and lies, flared into sharp relief.