I shook my head. “I asked to be brought before you, and the servants you sent to attend to me are rather literal-minded.” Relief crept over his face, slowly hiding the vulnerable young man from view. “They whisked me here before I could even blink.”
During the course of our conversation, the Goblin King had slowly donned his affected armor, piece by piece. First the smirk. The raised brow. The twinkle in his eyes. Then the nonchalant pose, as though it were nothing to him to be found naked in his bedroom by an equally naked young woman in a bedsheet. As though he had not shown me more nakedness of the soul than the brief glimpse of his thighs as he tumbled out of bed.
“Well, then.” Even his voice had resumed its usual dry tone. “I do apologize you caught me with my pants down, my dear. Rather literally too. I had not thought to resume our game so quickly.”
“Will you not offer me a seat?” I was determined to conduct myself with all the dignity I could muster, despite my sleep-mussed hair and disheveled appearance.
The Goblin King tilted his head in a courteous bow and waved his hand. The earth parted beneath my feet, and the roots of a young tree burst forth, growing and twisting themselves into the shape of a chair. Louis Quinze style. So that was where the furniture in my room had come from.
I sat down, primly rearranging the sheet about me.
“To what do I owe this honor, Elisabeth?” The soft-eyed young man was gone; he wore the mantle of Der Erlk?nig, distant and dangerous. I missed that soft-eyed young man. I wanted him back. He seemed real, not like Der Erlk?nig, all illusion and shadow.
“Where is my sister?”
He shrugged. “Asleep, I presume.”
“You presume?”
“It was a rather raucous night.” His lips curled. “I imagine K?the is back in her own bed. Or perhaps someone else’s. I can’t be too sure.”
Panic gripped me. “You swore she would come to no harm!”
He gave me a curious look. Before, he had merely glanced at me, unable to meet my gaze, but now that he was back in his trickster skin, he truly looked. He took in my flushed cheeks and tumbled hair, his eyes tracing the curve of my neck where it met my shoulder. Heat crept up the back of my neck.
“And so I did, my dear. So I did. Your sister is perfectly safe. She is whole, intact”—he placed a slight emphasis on the word intact—“and hale. My subjects were under orders not to touch her.”
It had not seemed that way the night before. I remembered a bevy of fawning swains, illicit kisses, and inappropriate touches.
“Very well, then.” I would not show him any sign of relief, any weakening of my dignity. “I shall collect her and go.”
“Oh ho ho.” The Goblin King conjured himself a chair and table and sat to face me. “We are not finished. We’ve but just played the second round.”
“Which I won,” I reminded him. “I am here in your domain now.”
“Yes, you are,” he said softly. “You are here at last.” There was an inviting edge to his words, an edge that caressed.
“Here at last,” I agreed. “Soon to be gone.” I spread my hands flat on the table between us. “And so the final round begins. What are the rules?”
The Goblin King laid his hands on the table as well. His fingers were long, slender, beautifully articulated, and—I saw with relief—with the proper number of joints. Our hands were where we could both see them, an old gesture to prove we were laying down honest wagers. Our fingertips brushed. The whisper of a memory touched me.
“The rules are simple,” he said. “You found your way in. Now find your way out.”
“Is that all?”
He smirked, smug and self-satisfied. “Yes. If you can.”
“I found my way Underground; I shall find my way back to the world above,” I said. “‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’”
The Goblin King raised an eyebrow. “Are you confident,” he asked, finishing the verse, “and willing to be absent from the body?”
I was startled. I had not expected a king of goblins to recognize words from the Scripture.
“I am willing,” I said in a low voice, “to do anything that is required of me.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “What will you play, Elisabeth?”
I had no answer. I had given him my music; I had given him my all. I did not know what else I had left.
“You first,” I said instead. “What will you lay down on the table?”
He watched me closely. “Shall we call each other’s reckoning then?”
I swallowed. “If you wish it.”
“Then what would you ask of me?”
He was laying a vast amount of power at my feet. He was Der Erlk?nig, magic and myth and mystery. I could ask him for anything I wished. I could ask for riches. I could ask for fame. I could ask for beauty.
“My music,” I said at last. “I am not greedy, mein Herr. I will ask only for what was mine to start.”
He studied me for a long time, so long that I thought he would refuse me. “That is fair,” he said with a nod.
“And you?” My scalp tingled, and an ache began at the base of my spine, fear or eagerness, I did not know. “What would you ask of me?”
His eyes held mine. “I would ask the impossible.”