Wintersong(33)

“I said, do you remember when you, me, Hans, and Sepperl danced to this when we were young?”

“Who’s Hans?”

A laugh stuck in my throat. “Handsome Hans, you used to call him,” I said. “Your betrothed.”

“Me, betrothed?” K?the giggled. “Whyever would I do a thing like that?” She cut a glance at a tall, slender goblin man and gave him a coquettish wink.

Cold pins of guilt pricked me. Whyever would she do a thing like that, indeed? “Yes, betrothed,” I said.

She raised her brow. “And who is Sepperl?” Another goblin man caught her hand and dropped a quick kiss as we spun past.

“K?the.” Despair slowed my limbs, weighing them down. “Sepperl is your brother. Our younger brother.”

“Oh,” K?the said indifferently. She blew a kiss to yet another goblin man.

“K?the!” I stopped dancing, and my sister stumbled. Another swain was there to catch her before she fell.

“What?” she asked irritably. A goblin server offered us a platter of hors d’oeuvres. K?the smiled at him and grabbed a few grapes. To my horror, the “grapes” on the platter were staring eyeballs, the chocolate bonbons beetles, and the luscious bloody peaches that had been my sister’s downfall were putrid and rotten, their split flesh looking like spilled guts in the goblin’s hands.

“K?the.” I grabbed her wrist, and she dropped the food in her hand. Her blue eyes behind the goblin mask were startled, and behind the fever-spell, I caught a glimpse of my sister, my real sister. “Wake up. Wake up from this dream and come back to me.”

Her gaze wavered, and for a moment, flesh and life returned to her face. But her eyes turned glassy once more, and her color faded.

“Oh, come off of it, Liesl,” she said gaily. “Let’s enjoy ourselves. There are men to dance with and men to flirt with!”

With that, one of the goblin swains hovering over her shoulder whisked her away.

“K?the!” I cried, but a press of bodies suddenly swarmed in front of me. I reached out for my sister, but there was always another person, another goblin in my way. I pushed through the dancing crowd, following the flash of sky blue through the revelers. But each time I thought I drew near, it was another woman, another lady wearing K?the’s face, those humanlike masks ghoulishly realistic in the flickering fairy lights of the ball.

In the tumult of heated bodies, a sea of identical faces stared back at me. But they no longer looked like Hans or K?the; they looked like the Goblin King. And me. My face, reflected back at me, a million little mirrors. His face, many of his faces, laughing and mocking me. His face, more human than the others, sharp, languid, and cruel. A beauty that cut like a blade. A dozen knife wounds slashed me to the heart.

“Why are you not partaking of my generosity, Elisabeth?”

A cool breath upon my neck. It smelled faintly of the wind before a snowstorm.

“There is a feast laid before you, yet you touch nothing.” The Goblin King came into view. In the shifting, mercurial fairy light, he was even more beautiful than he was in the world above, and even more frightening. “Why?”

“I am not hungry,” I lied. I was starving. I was starving for food, for music, for gluttony.

“Does the food not tempt you?”

I thought of the “bonbons” on the table. “No, mein Herr.”

“A pity.” His smile was a snarl. “Well, I did promise that your eyes would remain open, but my gifts do have consequences, my dear.”

“What consequences?”

The Goblin King shrugged. “Goblin glamour has no effect on you. You see things as they are.”

“How is that a consequence?”

“Depends on whom you ask.” He ran his tongue lightly over his pointed teeth. “Your sister,” he said, nodding toward K?the in the crowd, “would prefer pretty enchantments to the stark ugliness of reality, I think.”

My sister danced with not one, but several of the tall goblin men. They spun her from man to man, pressing their lips to the inside of her wrists, up her arms, along her collarbone, up her throat. She laughed and tried to kiss one of them on the mouth, but he turned his face away.

“Don’t we all?” I thought of the uncounted days spent at my klavier, before I had come to my senses, before I had come Underground. “Sometimes it is easier to pretend.”

“It is,” the Goblin King said in a low voice. His words vibrated all the way down my spine. “But aren’t we too old for our games of make-believe, Elisabeth?”

There was a wistful note in his words that belied his cool command of composure. Startled, I turned to face the Goblin King. His mismatched eyes looked vulnerable. Fallible. Almost … human. Those remarkable eyes searched mine, and in the space of a breath, I recognized the boy for whom I had played my music in the Goblin Grove.

A bright, musical laugh. I turned to see K?the trip and fall into a dancer’s arms. She threw her head back, exposing her neck and bosom to his kisses. I wanted to rush to my sister’s defense, but froze at the touch of a hand upon my shoulder.

“Wait.” Fingertips brushed the skin of my neck. “Stay.”

“But K?the—”

“Your sister will come to no harm, I promise.”

I held myself still, unwilling to face his eyes again. “How can I trust you to keep your word?” My voice did not sound like mine, husky and dark. “Are you not the Lord of Mischief?”