But now it felt like a rebuke. Or perhaps a bruise. Having emotions at all felt tender, sore, and Josef was comfortably numb. He saw Fran?ois’s sadness but did not share it. He was living under glass, and it was safe.
That night, he decided to open up old wounds.
As he was wont to do, he stood before the mirror and began to play. The instant his bow touched the strings, the world changed. The scent of pine and damp filled the room, the deep green of sleeping woods and earth. Shadows deepened the mirror-blue night with depth, and before him stood the tall, elegant stranger, also playing a violin.
Josef felt no fear or surprise, only a distant sense of recognition. He remembered this figure from his dreams, as familiar to him as an old friend. The stranger was cloaked and hooded, his face lost to darkness, but those long hands matched his bowing and fingering, phrase for phrase, the music matched in perfect unison.
And then, little by little, note by note, Josef felt the lightening of his spirit. A door had been opened, and for the first time in a long time, he was present. A faint, persistent drumming filled his ears. Hoofbeats? Or his heart?
The stranger stood in a room much like the one in which Josef was standing. He watched with fascination as the figure turned and explored the room, picking up a hairbrush here, a ribbon there. He pocketed a ring, a coin, a slipper. He unraveled a scarf, tied knots into corset strings, and hid a powder box on a shelf where no one could see. The stranger turned to Josef, and a slash of light illuminated the sharpened tips of a wolfish grin. He pressed his finger to his lips in a quiet gesture, and Josef found himself mirroring the movement. Up close, those long, elegant hands were twisted and odd, and Josef saw that there was an extra joint in each finger.
“Who are you?” he whispered to the stranger in his reflection.
The figure cocked his head. Blond curls peeked out from beneath the hood, a quizzical tilt of the chin. Josef nodded and the stranger’s grin widened. Slowly, deliberately, he raised those extra-jointed fingers to the edge of his hood and pushed it from his head.
It was his own face that stared back at him.
The kobold, the monster in the mirror, was him.
The thundering of Josef’s heart grew louder and louder, until it drowned out all sound and sense. He collapsed onto the floor, as shadows passed over the face of the moon, spectral riders on a spectral chase.
And outside, a woman with green eyes that glowed in the dark watched the clouds quake and quiver as they passed over the house of L’Odalisque, the small, satisfied smile of a hunter curling about her lips.
A MAELSTROM IN THE BLOOD
i sent our reply to our mysterious new benefactor the following day. Mother had been delighted by the news, and for the first time in an age, I saw her smile. The years fell away from her face, smoothing the furrow that had taken up permanent residence between her brows since Papa had died. Her blue eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed, and I was reminded that our mother was still a beautiful woman. Several of the guests must have agreed, for they gave her appreciative sidelong glances when they thought she wouldn’t see.
Count Procházka must have been very wealthy indeed, for when we presented his name to the factor in town, we were advanced an ungodly sum of money. After the coach fare, luggage, and wardrobe were taken care of, we still had funds left over. I made good with our vendors in town, establishing new lines for credit for Mother and the inn, but K?the and I allowed ourselves one small luxury each. My sister bought trimmings for a pretty new bonnet while I bought myself paper and a fresh set of quills, neatly trimmed. It did not matter that I had not composed or touched the Wedding Night Sonata since I had returned from the Underground; I could write in Vienna. I would write in Vienna.
The next few weeks passed by in a blur, a flurry of preparations that seemed to take up every waking minute of our days. I was mostly focused on packing what few belongings we had that would travel easily: our clothes, our shoes, what few trinkets we had left that weren’t sold to the pawnbroker to pay off Papa’s debts.
“What will you do with your klavier?” K?the asked. We were in Josef’s room, sorting through my things. “Will you have the Count send for it once we are settled there? Or do you intend to sell it ere we depart?”
I hadn’t given the matter much thought. In truth, I hadn’t given music much thought at all.
“Liesl,” K?the said. “Are you all right?”
“Of course,” I said, making a conspicuous show of sorting and organizing my notes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She ran her fingers over the faded ivory keys. I could feel her watching me as she pressed a note here, a note there. F-G-E-D sharp. A-A-A-F sharp. As she played tunelessly, aimlessly, I felt an inordinate sense of jealousy at her freedom, her nonchalance, her indifference. For my sister, music was just noise.
“It’s just,” she said after a moment, “I haven’t heard you play in a while, that’s all.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You’re always busy,” she observed. “But that’s never stopped you before.”
I felt a pang—of guilt, of shame, and not a little frustration. K?the was right, of course. No matter how tired I was at the end of the day, no matter how full my hours had been with cooking and cleaning, I had always managed to find time for music, magic, and the Goblin King. Always.
“I’m surprised you noticed,” I said tartly. “I didn’t think you cared.”
“Just because I don’t have your gifts doesn’t mean I don’t notice or care,” she said. “I know you, after all.”
To my horror, my eyes welled up with tears. I had pushed aside and made excuses for my reluctance to sit down and compose for so long that I hadn’t realized my music was a weeping wound that would not heal. K?the’s kindness was an antiseptic, and it stung like hell.
“Oh God, Liesl,” she said, stricken. “I didn’t mean—”
“No, no.” I surreptitiously wiped at my cheeks. “It’s all right. You didn’t do anything. I’m just overwrought, is all. It’s been a long week.”
K?the’s penetrating blue gaze was patient, but I did not elaborate. There was a part of me that wished I could confess and confide everything to her. How I hadn’t played or composed in an age because I was unable to face the enormous effort it would take to sit, to work, to labor. Because whenever I worked on my magnum opus, I felt another’s presence beside me—his touch, his kiss, his caress. Because I was afraid she wouldn’t believe me; or worse, that she would.