I don’t know when it happened, but suddenly, it was no longer my feet taking me farther and farther into oblivion. I was being pulled, dragged, coerced, caught in an undertow I had not sensed. I stopped, but the current around me was irresistible, and I began to struggle.
The Lorelei hissed, and the serenity surrounding us was shattered. They grabbed at whatever part of me they could reach, my chemise, my belly, my toes, my hair. They grabbed, and dragged.
I was submerged in darkness, broken only by wavering ripples of light as we disturbed the surface of the lake. I fought and kicked and clawed, but the Lorelei only bore down harder. The gleaming, glowing surface of the lake was growing farther and farther from reach. My aching lungs hitched, screaming for air they did not have.
But no. If I were to drown, then I would take as many as I could with me. I would not go quietly into the long darkness. I had not come so far to give up. I would go with fire and fanfare and a fight.
I grabbed at the Lorelei whose arms were locked about my waist. Her head was the closest to mine, and I wrapped my fingers in her hair, jerking her face hard toward mine. I did not know what I intended—to bite, to tear—but my lips found hers and I opened my mouth to the end.
A breath passed from her to me, and my lungs seized upon the air. Hot, humid, and moist, but air nonetheless.
And then it wasn’t the Lorelei with her arms about me, it was me clinging to her. She thrashed in my embrace, but I held on, Menelaus against Proteus, and I was the King of Sparta. With every kiss I stole, I drew another bit of breath, until at last the Lorelei returned me to the surface.
I broke through the water with a choking gasp, and I broke through alone. The Lorelei had vanished, but I was now caught in the grip of something just as terrifying: the rushing current.
“Help!” I called, but my cry was lost in the watery, gurgling rattle of my chest. “Help!”
But no one came.
I was tired, so tired, I could scarce keep my head above the water. But I would not succumb to fatigue. I had escaped near drowning by the Lorelei. I would escape this. The water battered and bashed me against hidden rocks, but despite the growing darkness in my head, despite the utter exhaustion in my body, I kept swimming. I kept breathing.
At last, the river slowed to a gentle crawl, a burbling brook that gave way to a still pond. The water pushed me against a rocky shore, and with a herculean effort, I managed to clamber out of the river, heedless of the cuts and scrapes and bruises on my body. I collapsed, coughing and retching, water running from my nose and mouth, still shimmering, still glowing, but tinged red with blood.
When I had coughed up the last of the water, I sat up. The world reeled, turning both black and sparkling at the edges.
Stay awake, I ordered myself. Stay alive.
I took a shuffling step forward, but if the mind was willing, the flesh was still weak. Darkness crashed down on me, and I remembered no more.
IMMORTAL BELOVED
“Elisabeth.”
A gentle hand shook me awake. I stirred and groaned, retching up the last bits of lake water from my lungs. In the blurry darkness, I could make out a long, lanky figure, with a shock of silver-white hair around his head like a mane.
My lips shaped a name before I remembered I did not know it.
“Mein—mein Herr?”
“Yes,” the Goblin King said softly. “I am here.”
“H—how?” I croaked.
“You may not have had Der Erlkönig’s protection as you walked the Underground,” he said, a smile in his voice. “But you always had mine.”
He held out his hand and I took it. Slowly, painfully, I got to my feet. I was aching all over, bruised and battered in more than just my body.
Above us, the same gap in the earth and tree I had crawled through to break the old laws the last time I came here. I was tired, so tired, but I forced myself to climb the ladder of roots and rock to the surface. The Goblin King supported me, encouraged me, helped me, until at last, I tumbled onto the forest floor of the threshold.
The world above was blue, the deep indigo of predawn. The starry veil of the night sky still held reign, but soon it would be gone, hidden by the rising sun. Already the darkness was lightening to purple, and the shadows were beginning to retreat.
I turned to face the Goblin King. He wore a soft expression and held a leather portfolio in his hands. Without another word, he took two steps forward and gave it to me.
“What is this?”
His only response was a smile. With shaking hands, I undid the ties that held it shut and opened it to find scores upon scores of music. I did not recognize the hand, but I recognized the composer. Me. It was my music, copied out in his hand. All of my music, the unfinished Wedding Night Sonata as well as the pieces I had sacrificed to gain entrance to the Underground.