Wintersong(92)

Hunger swept over his features, and too late I remembered Thistle’s warning. Careful, they bite.

But the changeling did not move. Instead, he closed his eyes, and pain thumped my chest. He reminded me so much of Josef, his gentle fragility, his ethereal otherworldliness. This changeling lived a half-life, and suddenly I was glad my brother was far from me, far from the fate from which my love had saved him.

Stay away, Sepperl, I thought fiercely. Stay away, and never come back.

“They say love can free you,” the changeling whispered. “That if one, just one person loved you enough, it could bring you back to the world above.” He opened his eyes, those flat, inhuman goblin eyes, and implored me. “Would you love me?”

His words, those little gifts. It was all made clear to me now why this changeling had sought me out. An invisible hand crumpled my heart in my chest. I wanted to gather him in my arms, to soothe him the way I would have soothed my little brother, kissing away the pain from his fingertips after Papa had made him practice his scales so much it tore the calluses. But he was not my brother.

“I’m sorry,” I said, as gently as I could.

The changeling did not react to my denial. I searched his face for hurt, for anger, but saw nothing but the inhuman, unfamiliar affect of the other goblins.

“I’ll bring more strawberries next time,” was all he said. “Is there anything you want me to give the sunshine girl?”

It was as though a thunderclap rang in the grotto. Silence and shock rang across the lake like a gong, resonating in my bones.

“You … you can do that?”

He shrugged. “She doesn’t see or hear me standing there. But if I can bring you her gifts, then maybe you can leave something for her.”

Hope. Hope so searing it burned me with determination.

“Could you … could you bring me with you?”

The changeling studied me. I could read nothing in his goblin gaze.

“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow. Meet me here tomorrow.”

*

I returned immediately to the retiring room and gathered the leaves of the Wedding Night Sonata, the beginnings of a fair copy, the foul papers, and all. I folded them together in haste, a jumble of music and half-coherent thoughts, wrapping them with the length of ribbon my sister had tied around the clover blossoms.

“What are you doing?” asked Thistle.

The goblin girls were by my side, though the room had been empty when I arrived. Sometimes I wondered if they were charged with spying on me in addition to attending to me. Then I felt guilty for the thought. There was no reason the Goblin King had to spy on me, no reason for me to hide my actions.

Until now.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “It is none of your business.”

“Is there anything with which we can assist you, Your Highness?” Twig asked. Of my two goblin girls, she was the kinder one, the one more inclined to offer deference instead of contempt.

“No, no,” I said. “I’m fine. Now shoo, the both of you, and leave me alone.”

Thistle crawled atop the klavier and leaned toward me. She breathed in deep.

“Hmmm,” she said. “You smell of hope.” Her lips split in a jagged grin. “Interesting.”

I batted her away. “Get off, you little homunculus.”

“Hope, and sunshine,” Twig added. I jumped when her branch-laden hair scraped against my side. “Like the world above. Like … like her.”

I paused in the gathering of my music. “Like whom?”

Twig yelped as Thistle leaped from the klavier and tackled her to the floor.

“Like whom?” I repeated.

“You raging idiot,” Thistle snarled, pulling handfuls of tufty cobwebs from Twig’s head. “You stupid, sentimental fool.”

“Enough!” My goblin girls flew apart, the force of my will sending them crashing into opposite corners of the retiring room. “You”—I pointed at Thistle—“are dismissed. And you”—I pointed at Twig—“are to stay here and explain yourself.”

Thistle resisted my command as long as she could, her ugly face twisting and contorting with the effort as her fingers, then her legs, and then her body began to vanish. Her head was the last to disappear, her furious grimace lingering long after the rest of her was gone.

Twig groveled at my feet. Bits of cobweb floated in the air like dust motes as she trembled.

“Twig,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know, Your Highness.” She lifted her head. “But I am not supposed to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“About the nameless maiden.”

Time ceased. The flames froze in the fireplace, the cobwebs and dust motes hung like stars.

“Do you mean,” I said softly, “the first Goblin Queen?”

The one who lived.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The nameless, brave maiden. I had forgotten about her, forgotten that she was the first and only one of us to make her sacrifice, and survive.

“How?” I whispered. “How did she escape?”

“She didn’t.” Twig twisted her spindly fingers into gnarled fists. “He let her go.”

Something snapped behind my eyes: pain, explosion, an epiphany. “What?”