The Goblin King nodded his head.
“Where do you go when you wander the Underground at night?”
A flash of pain crossed his face, but he answered without hesitation. “The chapel.”
His reply surprised me. “The chapel? Why?”
“Is that your next question?”
I paused. “Yes.”
It was a while before he answered. “Solace.” I waited for him to continue. “It gives me comfort to offer my prayers to the Lord, even if he never hears them.”
“For what do you pray?”
He watched me from beneath those hooded lids, eyes slightly narrowed. “For atonement.”
“For what must you atone?”
His eyes glittered. “For selfishness.”
I considered pressing him further, but I had one more question and I did not want to waste it. “How did you come to be Der Erlkönig?”
The Goblin King’s head snapped up and he snatched back his hands. “Don’t you dare, Elisabeth.”
My hands were still in front of me, palms empty. “You promised to answer truthfully.”
His nostrils flared. “There has always been Der Erlkönig. There will always be Der Erlkönig.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the one you must accept. If you will not, then name your forfeit, and I shall pay it.”
I studied him. I remembered the first story he had ever told me. The king underground knew the cost of sacrifice. He had sold his soul and his name to the goblins. His soul … and his name. But I thought of the gallery of Goblin Kings, an evolving line of different men. My Goblin King was Der Erlkönig, but Der Erlkönig was not every Goblin King. To whom had my husband given his name? To whom had he given his soul?
“Your name,” I whispered. “I claim your name as forfeit.”
He stiffened. “No, Elisabeth. I will give you anything but that.”
“Is a name so high a price to pay?”
The Goblin King looked at me, and there were a thousand emotions, a thousand years in his eyes. He had the form and figure of a young man, but he was ancient.
“It is,” he said quietly, “the highest price I could pay.”
“Why?”
He sighed, and it was the wind in the trees. “Who are you, Elisabeth?”
“Am I answering your questions now?” My hands were still empty, empty of his name. “You have not paid your forfeit.”
“I am paying it in the only manner I can.”
The silence between us began to fill.
“Who are you, Elisabeth? Answer this, and you shall understand.”
I frowned. “I am,” I began, then stopped. The Goblin King did not press me, but simply waited. His patience was infinite; his patience was immortal.
“I am … I am an innkeeper’s daughter.” It was the answer I would have given when I was Liesl, but it no longer felt true.
The Goblin King shook his head. “That is what you were.”
“I am … a musician. A composer.”
A small smile tilted his lips, but he shook his head again. “That is what you are. But who are you, Elisabeth?”
“I am …”
Who was I? Daughter, sister, wife, queen, composer; these were titles I had been given and claimed, but they were not the whole of me. They were not me, entire. I closed my eyes.
“I am,” I said slowly, “a girl with music in her soul. I am a sister, a daughter, a friend, who fiercely protects those dear to her. I am a girl who loves strawberries, chocolate torte, songs in a minor key, moments stolen from chores, and childish games. I am short-tempered yet disciplined. I am self-indulgent, selfish, yet selfless. I am compassion and hatred and contradiction. I am … me.”
I opened my eyes. The Goblin King gazed upon with me with naked longing. My pulse skipped, tripping over the emotions in my blood. His eyes were as clear as water, and I could see down to the heart of where he had been, my austere young man.
“You are Elisabeth,” he said. “A name, yes. But a soul as well.”
I understood then. He could not give me his name because he was no one; he was Der Erlkönig. He was hollowed out, his name and his essence stolen by the old laws. The space within where the austere young man had been was wanting, longing to be filled.
“I am Elisabeth,” I said. “But Elisabeth is only a name. An empty word I fill with myself. But you had a word once; I see the echoes of it within you.”
I couldn’t say why I wanted his name. It didn’t matter; he was Der Erlkönig, the Goblin King, mein Herr. But these were titles bestowed upon him, not ones he had claimed for himself. I wanted the part of him that did not belong to the Underground, but to the world above. To the mortal man he had been. The mortal man he could have been … with me.
“It is gone,” he said. “Lost. Forgotten.”
We did not speak for a long time. I held his silence close to me. His name might have been forgotten, but it was not lost.
“Well,” he said at last. “Do you accept my forfeit?” The Goblin King extended his hands, palms up.
No. I did not accept. It was not what I had asked for, but it was what I would have to take.
“Yes,” I said. “Your turn is ended.” I placed my hands in his.
“Good.” His smile hardened. “Then I shall ask you five questions, Elisabeth, and you must reply truthfully or pay the forfeit.”