I needed no further encouragement. The changelings disappeared into the shadows again and I tucked in with gusto, devouring the food before me with no thought for the niceties. The juice from the roast filled my mouth, rich and flavorful. I could taste the sweetness of rosemary, sage, and thyme, the smokiness of the roasting fire, the saltiness of the crust.
“You’ve still got an appetite,” Thistle remarked. “Surprising.”
I paused mid-bite. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “They all stopped eating in the end.”
I said nothing and continued eating.
“Are you not curious?” Thistle asked when it became clear I wouldn’t rise to her bait. “Curious about your fate?”
I tore off a piece of bread. “What else is there to know? My life is given to the Underground, and I may never again set foot in the land of the living.” I thought of the days spent at the klavier, the nights spent in the Goblin King’s hands, and my cheeks warmed. “I am dead to the world above.”
The longer you burn the candle …
The food stuck in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it down.
Thistle brought the salver of strawberries over to me. “You know what your bargain entails, but not what it portends.” She grinned, her teeth jagged and sharp.
I sighed. “Out with it, Thistle,” I said. “You want to tell me, so go ahead.”
She set the salver at my feet. “The first fruits of your sacrifice,” she said, picking up a strawberry in her long, many-jointed fingers. “Interesting. Early in the year for strawberries. Your favorite?”
I thought of the wild strawberry patch in the meadow by the inn. I was born in midsummer, and the patch always bore fruit by my birthday. It would be a race to see who could eat more: me, my sister, or the creatures of the forest. Käthe and I would steal away from our chores as often as we could to fill our bellies, our red-stained mouths always giving us away.
“Yes.” I loved strawberries because they tasted of more than sweetness; they tasted of stolen summer afternoons and laughter. “They were always my favorite birthday gift.”
Thistle laughed. “First to bloom, first to fade. Enjoy your strawberries while you can, then; the taste will soon fade to ash in your mouth.”
“How so?” I picked up the salver and set it on my lap.
“Do know what it means to live, Your Highness?” I rolled my eyes. I was plagued on all sides by philosophers. “Life is more than breath and more than blood. It is”—Thistle ate her strawberry with relish—“taste and touch and sight and sound and smell.”
I looked at the salver in my lap. Each berry was at its peak ripeness, its flesh a perfect bright red.
“The price you paid was not the remaining years of your life, you know. Think you the old laws could be bought so cheaply? No. It is not just your heart, but your eyes, your ears, your nose, and your tongue they demand.” She licked the sticky juice from her fingers. “Little by little, they will take your sight, your smell, your taste, your touch, a slow feast. Your passion, your vivacity, your capacity to feel, all sucked dry. And when you are nothing but a faded shade of your former self, then at last, you will die. Think you your beating heart the greatest gift you could give? No, mortal, your heartbeat is but the least and last.”
The ugliness of Thistle’s truth left me breathless. I felt sick; I could not stomach another bite.
“Oh yes,” she went on, plucking another berry from the tray. “One by one, your senses will leave you. Which of them can you bear to give up first, mortal?”
Which of them? None of them. Could I give up the taste of strawberries? The perfume of a summer’s evening, the feel of silk against my skin, the privilege of beholding the Goblin King with my own eyes? The taste of his kisses, the touch of his hands skimming the hills and valleys of my curves, the sound of his violin? And music, oh, God, music, would I ever be able to bear the agony of its loss?
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know.”
Thistle stole another strawberry from my salver. “Then eat, drink, and be merry while you can, for tomorrow …” She did not need to finish her sentence.
For the first time in a long time, I felt the weight, the enormity, of what I had sacrificed. I had spent so long in the world above denying myself that I knew just how well the loss of my senses would devastate and diminish me. Especially now that I understood the fullness of what the body could offer.
“How long?” I asked. “How long before—before it all fades away?”
Thistle shrugged. “You have as long as memory holds, I suppose.”
“What does that mean?”
Thistle’s eyes glittered. “Do you know what keeps the wheel of life turning, mortal?”
I was taken aback by this sudden turn in the conversation. “No.”
My goblin girl grinned, but it was a malicious grin, full of contempt and ridicule. “Love.”
I gave a disbelieving laugh. “What?”
“I know, what a foolish notion. But it doesn’t make it any less powerful, or true.” Thistle leaned forward, breathing deep my sorrow, anger, and confusion. “As long as the world above remembers you, as long as you have a reason to love, your taste and touch and smell and sight and sound shall remain to you.”
I frowned. In the distance, I could still hear the violin playing its unidentifiable but familiar song, like a beacon, like a call.