“So calm,” Twig remarked, running a shiny black claw over the back of my hand. I snatched my hand away, wrapping the bedsheet tighter about my body. “So calm despite the passion shimmering beneath this fragile, mortal skin.”
“Mmm,” Thistle agreed, her long nose disconcertingly close to the crook of my neck, where my pulse fluttered erratically. “I like this one better than the other one. This one could sustain us for a very long time.”
The other one. Did they mean K?the? I needed to find her, and soon.
“Enough.” I pushed Twig and Thistle away. They both retreated with a snarl, disappointed by my composure. There was something unsettling about their … eagerness for me. It looked like desire, but felt like hunger. I shuddered, still feeling their ghostly fingers crawling over my skin. “Find me something to eat, something to wear, and take me to my sister.”
My attendants exchanged glances, their inky eyes blank.
“I wish you would find me something to wear and I wish you would find me something to eat.”
A sour expression crossed both their faces; I had said the magic words. I allowed myself a triumphant smile as the goblin girls faded away, leaving nothing but scattered leaves behind.
After they left, I studied every inch of my barrow, but my room stubbornly remained windowless and doorless. How did goblins travel? Did they simply wish themselves to and fro? I laughed.
If only our wishes had power indeed.
Within a few moments my attendants returned, Thistle carrying a dress, Twig carrying a cake and some wine. The dress was a gaudy confection, more suited to a public salon than workaday practicality. The cake looked appetizing, but I remembered the “treats” from the Goblin Ball and did not trust it.
“No,” I said. “Go back and find me something more suitable.”
Thistle looked mutinous. “And what do you consider suitable, mortal?”
I rubbed the fabric of the gown between my fingers. Silk. It was beautiful, but the hoops and panniers and corsets Thistle had brought along seemed more trouble than they were worth, especially if I were to go traipsing Underground with my sister.
“Something simple,” I said. “None of this silk and satin frippery. Nothing that would take a bevy of servants to sew me into. Something practical.”
“So boring,” Thistle pouted.
“Yes.” I didn’t deny her. “And if you can’t find me a dress, bring me a skirt and blouse and I shall make do.”
Thistle crossed her arms. “I don’t understand. The other mortals loved all the pretty dresses we could find for them.”
“I am not my sister.” I paused. “The other mortals?”
“The other brides, of course.”
I knew that the Goblin King had taken other brides. Constanze was a veritable fount of cautionary tales about women who were too bold, too intelligent, too beautiful, too different. Yet jealousy pricked me with its needle-sharp sting; I was none of those things, and the Goblin King had made me believe he had wanted me—me entire, me alone.
“What, jealous?” Thistle grinned.
“No.” But my flush betrayed the lie.
“Look how pink she is now!” Twig said with delight.
“What happened to the other women?” I was determined not to let my attendants get the better of me. “What happened to the other brides?”
“They failed,” Thistle said simply. She went about the business of dressing me.
“Failed?” I was too surprised to swat her away. “What do you mean, failed?”
“Stand still,” Thistle growled, trying to lace me into the stays and panniers. The matter was clearly of no great import to her, but the game had changed somehow. I felt I had turned a familiar corner to find a completely different path than the one I expected. Constanze’s stories had never mentioned this.
“What do you mean, failed?” I repeated the question to Twig.
The taller goblin girl lifted her bushy brows. “They failed to escape,” she said. “What else would we mean?”
“Escape the Underground, you mean.”
Twig shrugged. “Der Erlk?nig, the Underground, Death. They are one and the same.”
“Stop wriggling!” Thistle pinched me with her sharp little claws, and I yelped. “If you let me dress you, then you can go see to your sister. I can tell you she’s already dressed in whatever her retinue have put out for her, and eaten of whatever they have brought.”
Was she trying to guilt me? I bit back a laugh. If I started laughing, I would cry.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll get dressed. But not in this. Find me another dress.” My stomach rumbled. “And bring me a loaf of bread and some water. Some sausage if you can find it. None of these fairy-made sweets. I will not have my senses clouded by your magic.”
Twig and Thistle opened their mouths to protest. I glared at them. “I wish…”
They disappeared without a word, leaving behind nothing but the echoes of a disgruntled sigh.
*