The Goblin King had had enough. “Will you not speak?” he demanded.
I cut myself another piece of roast. “You were doing a fine job by yourself,” I said mildly.
“I had not thought you would be such a dull conversationalist, Elisabeth.” He sulked. “You were always willing to speak to me before. Back in the Goblin Grove. Back when we were young.”
Had Der Erlkönig ever been young? He was ageless and ancient, yet I seemed to remember his face, round and fleshed out with youth. I remembered a little girl in the wood, and a little boy.
“A little girl’s idle chatter is not the same as scintillating conversation, mein Herr.” I set down my utensils. “But what did I tell you?”
The Goblin King smiled, but I could not tell whether it teased or soothed. “Many things. You wanted to be a famous composer. You wanted to have your music heard in all the great concert halls of the world.”
Pain flared out from my breast, lightning quick, but the burn of it lingered after its initial strike. It was true I had dreamed those things once. Before Josef stole our father’s attention with his gifts. Before Papa had made it abundantly clear to me that the world had no interest in hearing my music. Because it was strange. Because it was queer. Because I was a woman.
“Then you know the very heart of me,” I said. “And there is no more to be said.”
The Goblin King’s face darkened. “What is wrong with you, Elisabeth?”
I lifted my eyes to his. “There is nothing wrong with me.”
“There is.” He shifted in his seat, and although there was an endless array of food and feast between us, he was too close. A storm was brewing behind those mismatched eyes, and the air between us crackled with electricity. “You’re not the Elisabeth I remember. I thought that if you—that if you became my—” He cut himself off abruptly. “This,” he said, gesturing to the space between us, “is not what I was hoping for.”
“People grow up, mein Herr,” I said shortly. “They change.”
He gave me a hard look. “Evidently.” He stared at me for a beat longer before leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, resting his feet on the table. “Ah, well, my mistake. Time passes differently Underground than in the world above. Mere moments for me, several years and a lifetime ago for you, apparently.” The storm in his eyes grew darker.
A hapless goblin attendant tried to move one of the Goblin King’s feet to clean beneath it. “What are you doing?” he snapped.
The goblin gave him a beetling look and tried to scurry out of the way, but not before the Goblin King grabbed the poor thing by the scruff of its neck and gave it a malicious kick, sending it ear over toe across the room.
I was horrified. “How could you?”
His eyes glittered dangerously. “It would do the same to me if it could,” he said mulishly.
“You’re Der Erlkönig,” I said. “You are their king, and hold untold power over them. You are the reason they cannot leave the Underground. Have a little pity, why don’t you?”
He snorted. “They are as much my jailers as I am theirs,” he retorted. “If I could lay down my burden as warden of the Underground, I would. If I could wander the world above as a free man, I would. Instead, I am a prisoner to my crown.”
That brought me up short. He had always seemed to come and go at my beck and call in the Goblin Grove, but in his own way, he was trapped. Like me.
“What would you do, if you were a free man?” I asked.
The question struck him in the chest, spreading through his throat and face like the blush of dawn. With life and color to his features, he looked once more like the austere young man in the portrait gallery: young, idealistic, and vulnerable.
“I would take my violin and play.” The words were spoken almost before his lips could catch up to what he was saying. “I would walk the world and play, until someone called me by name and called me home.”
His name and his home. What had my Goblin King left behind in the mortal world? Was it a greater torment to watch everything you had known and loved transform and disappear before your eyes while you remained alive and unchanging? Or was it worse to die before you could witness that change for yourself?
The Goblin King’s eyes met my own, and for the briefest moment, I saw him—truly him—behind the mask of Der Erlkönig, down to the boy he had been. But he blinked, and the mantle was upon him once more.
“And what of you, Elisabeth?” he drawled. “What would you do, if you were free?”
I turned my head, eyes stinging. He had returned my question with a particularly vicious volley, and we both knew it.
“We can play this game all you like,” he said. “Question for question, answer for answer.”
“You can keep your answers to yourself,” I replied. “I have no further questions.”
“Oh, Elisabeth.” His voice was sad. “What happened between us? What happened to you? You were once so passionate and open with me, and now I can barely see the friend I once knew. Why won’t you come out and play, Elisabeth? Why?”
He had all the questions, but I had no further answers. We finished our meal without another word between us.
* * *
After the goblins had cleared the last of our dishes away, the Goblin King invited me to join him in his retiring room. A slight tingle of excitement began at the base of my spine at the prospect of being in his private chambers again, and I agreed. I wished I could sort out my feelings for him, my lord and jailer, friend and foe. Part of me yearned to draw him close, while another wanted to keep him at arm’s length. The Goblin King offered me his arm and we left the dining hall on a breeze.