The Goblin King raised his brows. He did not accept.
“I don’t know,” I repeated. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t tried. I wanted to finish it, I wanted to write something wholly and utterly in my own voice, something the world would hear and know as mine. But every time I sat before the klavier, every time I pressed my fingers to the keys, nothing came. “I … I can’t continue. I don’t know how. It’s as if … it’s dead inside.”
The Goblin King narrowed his eyes, but I could not give him another answer. He studied me closely, but did not ask me to justify myself, and simply asked the next question.
“What do you miss about the world above?”
I sucked in a sharp breath. The Goblin King’s face was carefully neutral, and I could read nothing of his intent. Did he mean to be cruel? Consoling? Or was he merely curious?
“Many things,” I said in a faltering voice. “Why do you ask?”
“Your turn for questions is ended, Elisabeth. Answer truthfully or pay a forfeit.”
I turned my head. Although I could not say why, I could not look at him while I gave my answer.
“Sunshine. Snow. The sound of branches lashing against a windowpane during a storm. Standing before the hearth in the middle of summer, the feel of sweat trickling down my neck. And then the unexpected sweetness of a cool breeze from an open window.” I glanced at the salver of strawberries on the klavier. “I miss the sharp, green taste of lemony grass, the yeastiness of beer.”
Tears burned along my lashes, but I did not cry. Could not cry. There were no tears in me, and I felt the stinging of phantom sobs run up and down my throat.
“I even miss the parts I didn’t know to miss. The pungent, musky pong of an inn overcrowded with travelers. Leather-clad feet, baby breath, sodden wool. Men, women, children.” I laughed. “People. I miss people.”
The Goblin King was silent. I still could not bear to look at him, and our only communion was through the meeting of our hands.
“If you could,” he said softly, “if it were at all possible, would you leave the Underground?”
This time, it was I who snatched my hands away, to hide their trembling. “No.”
“Liar.” I could hear the snarl in his voice.
I straightened my shoulders and steeled myself to meet his gaze. The Goblin King’s lips were twisted in a sneer, but his eyes were sad.
“Down here,” I said, “I have found myself. Down here, I have space to be. It is a gift I never looked for, and I cherish it.”
“It wasn’t a gift.” The Goblin King picked up the salver of strawberries and presented it to me. I picked the biggest, reddest one. “It is merely a consolation prize.”
He rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?”
“The game is finished. I’m tired.”
“Do you accept my answer, then?”
He looked at the big, red strawberry in my hand. “No.”
“Then what is your forfeit?”
The set of his mouth tightened. “Finish your strawberries, Elisabeth. That is what I claim of you.”
A strange request, but I did as he asked. I took a bite. And gagged.
I tasted nothing.
I stared at the strawberry in my hand, its flesh still succulent and soft, the juice still running down my fingers. I could still smell its sweet perfume, a promising treat. But without its taste, the berry was nothing but mushy flesh and grainy skin. My stomach turned.
The Goblin King said nothing, only watched as I ate berry after tasteless berry, as I paid my penalty.
THE THRESHOLD
“I have a present for you.”
It was the changeling again, the one with whom I had spoken on the shores of the Underground lake. I was there again, hiding from my goblin attendants. During my uncounted hours, I often found myself listless; unable to compose, unable to play, and unable to eat. The flesh about my ribs had thinned to reveal a cage of bones, my cheeks sunken to expose a death’s-head grin. Food had lost all its savor, a fact Thistle never failed to notice or relish whenever she brought me my dinner tray. I ate to spite her, but it was hard, so much harder when all pleasure was gone from the eating.
The changeling had his hands cupped around an object, offering it to me as though it were a precious thing, a baby bird.
“Another?”
He nodded. His palms opened like a flower, and at their heart, there lay a bloody mass. I gasped.
The changeling tilted his head, his flat, black eyes watching me with no expression. Then I realized that it wasn’t a dying creature in his hands; it was a bunch of strawberries, bruised, battered, and bleeding.
“Oh,” I said, a bit breathless. “Thank you.”
“They’re not from me,” he said. “They’re from the sunshine girl.”
K?the. The sunshine girl. The first smile in an age touched my lips, and my spirits, dead and dull, stirred within me.
“An offering in the grove?”