He rested his hand on the youth nearest him, affectionately caressing the boy’s face. The attendant’s expression betrayed nothing, but when the Goblin King tilted back his head for a kiss, the youth complied with a razor-toothed smile. It was a lascivious, knowing sort of smile. Then I realized he was one of the goblin swains I had met at the goblin ball, one with whom I had played games of bluff.
I took a sip of the brandy to disguise my discomfort. It tasted of summer peaches, of sunshine, of life, and it burned all the way down. I coughed.
The Goblin King studied my face, burning bright and red, and nodded at the changelings. They vanished without a word.
“So,” I said, trying to smooth the awkwardness between us, “what shall we do to pass the time?” I couldn’t tell if it was the room or the brandy, but I was suddenly warm—too warm.
The Goblin King shrugged. His eyes flitted to the klavier, where it gleamed in the glow of the fire and fairy lights. “It is up to you,” he said. “I am at my lady’s command.”
It felt all so surreal and strange to be sitting with him, in this beautifully appointed room with a glass of brandy in her hand. When Käthe and I pretended to be rich noblewomen, we had played at their airs and graces, their refined and elegant tastes. But when confronted with the reality of it, I was at a loss. At the inn, there was never any time for leisure. After dinner had been served, there were dishes to wash, tables to clean, and floors to sweep and mop. It had always been Mother and me, working our hands to leather while Papa went out with his friends, while Constanze rested in her room upstairs, while Käthe primped and preened, while Josef played.
“What would you do?” I asked.
The Goblin King poured himself a glass of brandy, his silver-white-gold hair falling to cover his expression. “I would play some music.”
I held my glass in both hands, as though it could protect me from what I knew he would ask next. He would ask me to play. He would ask to listen to my music.
“All right,” I said. He lifted his eyes to meet mine, a knife-slash of a gaze that cut deep. But it was the hope and delight in his face that cut deeper. “Why don’t you play a little something on the klavier for me, mein Herr?”
The light in his eyes dimmed. “As you wish, my queen.”
The Goblin King set down his brandy and walked to the klavier, flipping out the tails of his coat as he sat down on the bench. He ran his fingers lightly over the keys and began to play.
At first I didn’t recognize his choice of music. Gradually it revealed itself as a simple children’s skipping song, one Käthe and I had sung as we played in the wood. The Goblin King elaborated on the theme in a few variations, and I listened politely, my toe tapping the floor beneath me.
The variations were not particularly inspired, nor his execution on the klavier especially clean. For a man of myth and legend, the Goblin King’s playing was astoundingly ordinary. But his touch on the keys was light and nimble, and he had a wonderful sense of rhythm, moving in and out with the rise and fall of the melody.
My fingers twitched, and a hitching sensation clawed its way out of my breast. I wanted to go to him, to suggest a different variation, to sit next to him on the bench and share in the act of creation. I wanted my hands on his, I wanted to guide those long, slim fingers, and I wanted to change the tenor of the music, to push here and draw out there. The Goblin King sensed me watching him, and the faintest blush of pink tinted his cheeks. His fingers slipped on the keyboard.
“Well,” he said once he had finished. “I hope that was to your satisfaction, my dear. I have not your gift for improvisation, and my hands are much more accustomed to the feel of strings and a bow beneath them.”
“Who taught you to play?” I was trembling, but I was not cold; I was hot. I could feel the heat rising from my cheeks, my throat, my chest.
His only answer was an enigmatic smile. “And now it is your turn, Elisabeth.”
From too hot to too cold. A wash of fear drenched me from head to toe in a nervous sweat. “Oh no.” I shook my head. “No.”
Annoyance began to harden his face. “Come, Elisabeth. Please. I am asking nicely.”
“No,” I said again, a little more firmly.
The Goblin King sighed, and rose from his seat. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why are you so afraid? You were always so fearless, so brazen in your own way when it came to this. You never held anything back when we played together in the Goblin Grove.”
The small tremors in my body had grown into bone-shattering shakes. The Goblin King studied me, watching my complexion change from pale to flushed to pale again, and walked over to me. His hands took mine and I let him lead me from the couch to the klavier.