Shadowsong (Wintersong #2)(66)

You are the monster I claim, mein Herr.

Perhaps I loved the monstrous because I was a monster. Josef, the Goblin King, and me. We were grotesques in the world above, too different, too odd, too talented, too much. We were all too much.

Images flashed across the backs of my eyelids. Cloud shadows passing over sun-dappled red tiles. A monastery looking down its nose at the valley below. The names of monks carved into mountainsides, the echoes of memory ringing bells in my mind. Scarlet poppies springing from white snow with a whisper and a sigh. Faster and faster and faster, a long spiral down into the labyrinth of my subconscious yet I could not sleep, could not rest. I tossed and turned, unable to stop the whirlwind carousel thoughts flying out from the center: that I should tell Josef the truth.

I kicked at the bed linens tangled about my legs, clenching my fists and teeth to hold in the urge to scream. Notes and musical phrases and melodies crashed in my head, and I clapped my hands over my ears to drown out the noise. Rage and frustration were coiled in my limbs, a tantrum building in my body ready to burst forth with a roar and whimper. The truth about my brother’s changeling was a trap that could be tripped at any moment, and I would rather spring it myself than have it snap down upon our necks and break our relationship.

I should tell him.

I should tell K?the.

My eyes flew open. Clawing my way out from under the covers, I threw myself out of bed, unable to lie still any longer despite my fatigue. I paced back and forth before the windows of my room. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to play. I wanted to sit before my klavier and work out my feelings through my fingers, through the black and white keys, through major and minor.

Your music creates a bridge between worlds.

I thought of the evening we had performed Der Erlk?nig for the Count and Countess. The scent of ice and pine and deep woods filling the small, stuffy room. The whisper of my name across the veil. The weight of the Goblin King’s ring in the palm of my hand when I awoke from the dream. The sudden itch to play scratched at me, despite the Wild Hunt, despite the barrier between worlds, despite how utterly perverse and nonsensical it was to return to my art at the moment it was the least safe.

I shouldn’t.

And yet.

Why shouldn’t I?

The tantrum tempest raging within me fed upon my manic irritation, growing larger and stronger to encompass Josef, my sister, the Countess, the world. I was no longer the Goblin Queen, no longer mistress of a domain that would twist and bend itself to my will. I could not tear the curtains to shreds. I could not smash the dresser beside me. I could not tear the linen cupboard doors from their hinges. I could not shatter the windowpanes with my bare hands. I was in the world above now and I could not, I could not, I could not.

Dusk deepened outside, turning the sky indigo blue and the shadows a violet purple. I walked to the windows in my quarters and looked toward the hills behind the estate and Lorelei Lake. I saw the Countess walking toward the poppy field, her uneven gait distinctive even in the darkness. One by one, stars emerged in the sky, pinpricks of light that limned the world in silver. On a night like this, my brother and I would have imagined the goblins and fey out and about, wreaking havoc and mischief upon a sleeping world. Shapes moved about in the forest beyond the edges of the estate, my imagination running wild.

Until a stark silhouette emerged from the trees, carrying a violin.

Josef.

He stood on the grounds facing the house. I could not make out anything of his face or features, but I imagined his eyes turned up to the second floor, seeing my white chemise stand out in the murky black of my window. We stared at each other—or not—for several long moments. Our first moment of connection since we had argued. Then my brother turned around and made his way back toward the poppy field and the woods.

I felt as though I had been slapped.

Fine, I thought. You are no longer first in my heart. I waited for guilt to flay the flesh from my bones and leave me bare, but it never did. Nothing touched me but exhaustion and resignation.

I was tired of waiting, tired of longing and hoping and wishing my brother would turn around and appreciate me. That Josef loved me, I had no doubt, but he, like so many others, had taken me for granted. That I would come running to him in Vienna to save him. To bring him home. To be at his beck and call. Fran?ois and I had tried and tried and tried to put him back together after he had fallen apart, but the more we tried, the more the pieces no longer fit.

I thought of K?the then. My sister had once called me a top spinning out of control, and that the slightest wobble would topple me. I hadn’t realized until then how selfish I had been to lay that emotional burden on her shoulders. I wished Josef could see that now.

I am tired of holding your heart.

“I give it back,” I whispered to my brother, lost to the shadows outside. “I give you back your heart.”

Sadness washed over me. Instead of guilt or frustration or anger, in the aftermath of the tempest tantrum, I felt nothing but melancholy. Mania and melancholy, my twin demons. With sorrow came fatigue, a deep and abiding sense of exhaustion. I climbed back into bed.

“I give you back your heart,” I said to the darkness. “And I wish you would give me mine.”





snovin Hall was haunted.

It wasn’t haunted in the usual manner—with ghosts and sprites and spirits. Josef knew how to exorcise ghosts from a house with bells and holy water. He knew how to appease kobolds and H?dekin with offerings of milk and bread, how to safeguard his home from the unseen forces of the world with salt and prayers. But what he didn’t know how to do was cast out the demons from his own head.