I tucked the violin beneath my chin, inhaling the faint scent of rosin. Faint traces of an earthier, muskier perfume were ingrained into the wood. The scent of ice curling over pond edges, the woody heart of a bonfire. The scent of the Goblin King.
I tuned the strings first, but the violin had been played recently enough that it needed little adjustment. I practiced a few scales and exercises, running my fingers up and down the neck, acquainting myself with the feel of it. Each violin was different from its brother in the subtlest, smallest of ways, even if the bones were the same. This violin was older than any of the ones we had at the inn—any of the ones we had remaining. The angle of its neck to the body was different, as well as the length of the fingerboard. The sound was fuller and deeper as I ran the bow over its strings.
My hands had not touched a violin since the Goblin Ball, when I joined the musicians playing the minuet, when I had first allowed that seed of music within me to crack and emerge forth. My instrument, by necessity rather than choice, had been the klavier. First because I was needed to accompany Josef, and second because the keyboard was the easiest place I could visualize my music. But the violin was the first instrument I had learned, and therefore the first instrument I had loved. Although it did not sing in my hands the way it did in my brother’s, or even the Goblin King’s, I knew how to ply its strings.
Vibrations ran along the belly of the violin and along my jaw where it rested against the instrument. I closed my eyes, feeling the resonance sing inside my head. Once I was warmed up, I let my fingers do what they willed—the beginnings of a few chaconnes, phrases from sonatas I had always enjoyed playing, runs of sixteenth notes and trills.
But it had been years since I last played with any serious intent, years since I had practiced. My fingers tangled themselves up, the discipline lazied out of them. I could no longer keep my tempos consistent, nor could I remember an entire piece from beginning to end. But there was no need to prove virtuosity to myself, not anymore. So I picked a simple aria, one Mother used to sing as she worked around the inn.
Be, thou, with me.
I heard him breathing.
Then go I with joy, to Death and to my rest.
It had been so long since his presence walked in my mind that I knew the instant the Goblin King was near.
Oh how glad would be my end, if it be your dear hands I see, closing my faithful eyes at last.
The hitch of a broken breath. I opened my eyes, but there was no one there. But I felt his eyes upon me anyway, feather-light and invisible, gentle fingers tracing the line of my neck and arm as it held the violin. I felt its touch on my bow arm, gently holding my elbow as I moved it back and forth across the strings in a smooth, continuous arc.
“Be, thou, with me,” I said, still playing. An invitation.
“I am here, Elisabeth.”
The bow faltered, and I dropped my arms. And from the shadows appeared an austere young man.
The Goblin King had appeared before me in many guises before—a tall, elegant stranger, a poor shepherd boy, a peacock-king—but I had never seen the youth in the portrait until now. The black of his tunic set off the pallor of his skin, turning his complexion silver and his hair golden white. There was no ornamentation on his sleeves or collar, save for a small wooden cross at his throat, and there was something of the priest about him: simple, plain, and beautiful.
“You call, and I answer,” he said.
I set down the violin and the bow and held out my arms. “You come and I bid you welcome, mein Herr.”
There was nothing else that needed to be said.
We walked into each other’s embrace. We stood like that for a long while, allowing ourselves to adjust to the rhythm of each other’s breaths, to relearn each other’s shapes and curves. I had not known until that moment how empty my arms had been. He had lived in my mind for so long; now I wanted to hold more than just the idea of him. I wanted to hold him.
“Oh, Elisabeth,” he said into my hair. “I am afraid.”
He was quivering, shaking and trembling like a leaf in a storm.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
He laughed, an uncertain waver. “You,” he said. “Damnation. My heart.”
His heart. It beat beneath my cheek, fast and unsure.
“I know,” I murmured into his chest. “I’m afraid too.”
A confession, the first admission of weakness I had ever given him. I felt the realization all throughout his body. I had given him my hand, my music, my body, but the one thing I had not given him was my trust. I had trespassed against him in the chapel. Let him trespass against me now.
He kissed me.
It was not like any of the others we had shared. No passion, no frenzy, and I understood then that each time we had kissed before was not a gift; it was theft. We had stolen from each other, demanding something of the other without any thought to giving.
“Elisabeth,” he said against my lips. “I have done you great wrong.”