He left his seat and kneeled before me. His hands rested on the armrests of my chair, but he was careful not to touch me.
“All I ask, Elisabeth,” the Goblin King said, “is that you remember.” His words were a bass, their notes resonating in my bones. “Please, remember.”
I shrank from the longing in his voice. “I cannot give you that which cannot be given,” I said. “I could more easily cut off my hand to give you than my memories.”
We stared at each other. Then the Goblin King blinked and the tension that quivered tight between us snapped.
“Well,” he said, drawing out the vowel. “Then I suppose we shall have to make do.”
I nodded. “What would you claim of me?”
His eyes glittered. “Your hand in marriage.”
The blunt proposal hit me harder than a blow. “What?”
The Goblin King crossed his arms and leaned back, his pose insouciant, a smile quirked to one side. Yet somehow his eyes seemed sad.
“You asked, I answered,” he said. “The answer is you. What I want is you—entire.”
I swallowed hard. The air Underground was suddenly hot, close, suffocating.
“What of Käthe?” I whispered.
For a moment, the Goblin King seemed confused, but then he laughed. “Ah well,” he said. “A bride is a bride. You or your sister, it matters not to the old laws.” He leaned closer. “But if either of us had the choice, would we not rather it be you instead, Elisabeth?”
I would. But I threw myself upon that thought before it was fully formed, stuffing it back into my heart’s compartments, shutting it firmly closed. “A poor choice you have given me,” I said. “My life, or my sister’s.”
He shrugged. “All you mortals die in the end.”
His callousness was a chilling reminder that the Goblin King was not my friend. That despite the soft-eyed man I yearned for, he was still Der Erlkönig, ruthless, indifferent, immortal.
I’d had enough. “All right,” I said. “The stakes are laid. Is there anything else you need from me, mein Herr?”
The Goblin King shook his head. “No,” he said softly. “Just know this: you have but the days of winter to escape. The barrier between worlds is thin, but only until the year begins anew.”
“What will happen if I don’t?”
His face was grim. “Then you are trapped here forever. My power is great, Elisabeth, but I cannot change the old laws. Not even for you.”
I took his warning for truth. I nodded and rose to my feet.
The Goblin King inclined his head at me. “Pfiat’ di Gott. Godspeed, Elisabeth.”
“I had not thought goblins believed in God.”
A small wrinkle appeared between his brows. “They don’t,” he said. “But I do.”
THE BRIDE
“Well?”
I blinked. I was back in my barrow, whisked there before I could finish my next thought. Twig and Thistle waited for me, perched on my bed.
“Well, what?” I asked.
An unholy glee painted both their faces. “Was he angry with you?”
My mind was still in the Goblin King’s chambers, even as my body stood in my own barrow. Humans were not meant to be whisked to and fro like this; my grasp of time and space was simple, linear, uncomplicated.
I shook my head, more to regain myself than to respond. “No.”
My goblin attendants’ ears pricked up with interest, their knobby fingers reaching for my skin. I shrank from their inquisitive touch.
“No,” I said in a firmer voice. Twig and Thistle pushed closer, their sharp-pointed teeth twinkling beneath the fairy lights. “He was not angry with me.”
Their ears drooped with disappointment. “He wasn’t?”
I minded that these goblin girls were not my friends; they, like the Goblin King, were my enemies in this wearisome game.
“He was not,” I repeated. “And I do not appreciate your little tricks, putting me in that position.”
“So calm,” Twig remarked, running a shiny black claw over the back of my hand. I snatched my hand away, wrapping the bedsheet tighter about my body. “So calm despite the passion shimmering beneath this fragile, mortal skin.”
“Mmm,” Thistle agreed, her long nose disconcertingly close to the crook of my neck, where my pulse fluttered erratically. “I like this one better than the other one. This one could sustain us for a very long time.”
The other one. Did they mean Käthe? I needed to find her, and soon.
“Enough.” I pushed Twig and Thistle away. They both retreated with a snarl, disappointed by my composure. There was something unsettling about their … eagerness for me. It looked like desire, but felt like hunger. I shuddered, still feeling their ghostly fingers crawling over my skin. “Find me something to eat, something to wear, and take me to my sister.”
My attendants exchanged glances, their inky eyes blank.
“I wish you would find me something to wear and I wish you would find me something to eat.”
A sour expression crossed both their faces; I had said the magic words. I allowed myself a triumphant smile as the goblin girls faded away, leaving nothing but scattered leaves behind.
After they left, I studied every inch of my barrow, but my room stubbornly remained windowless and doorless. How did goblins travel? Did they simply wish themselves to and fro? I laughed.
If only our wishes had power indeed.