I laughed. It felt good to laugh, even for a feeble joke; it relieved a bit of the pressure of grief and homesickness on my heart. It felt good to laugh with someone again, even if she wasn’t my sister. Even if she wasn’t a friend.
Humans were not meant for isolation. We were not meant for loneliness. I glanced back at the ghosts of my family sitting with me in my bedchamber, invisible to the eye, but visible to my heart. I was dead to the world above, but I could not help but reach for comfort and companionship, the way a flower yearns for sunshine in the dark.
*
After my bath, Twig and Thistle took me deep into the heart of the Underground, to the center of the goblin city for some proper gowns and dresses. I was curious about goblin ateliers—Thistle and Twig did not wear human clothes; they preferred to wear little skirts woven of leaves and branches and twigs. The fact that goblins had tailors and seamstresses at all intrigued me.
The corridors changed as we wound through the various passageways. Where my room was situated had curved hallways, tunnels rather than broad passages, paintings and portraits and other objets d’art, and dirt floors lined with rugs. The paths by the underground lake were smaller, tighter, and damper—less earthen and more rocky.
As we neared the center of the goblin city, the hallways broadened and expanded into passable avenues. The floor became paved with enormous gemstones, each the size of my head. They glittered beneath our feet as we passed, their surfaces polished by thousands—millions—of feet smoothing them over centuries. On each side of these broad avenues were elaborately carved thresholds, with “windows” cut into the second-and third-story walls to overlook the streets below.
It was wrong. The city was strange, forced, and artificial. It did not teem with life; it was empty. This city had not been grown—it had been made. There was a symmetry to these buildings that seemed antithetical to the goblin aesthetic, a rigid sameness and grace that was as ordered as a Baroque symphony.
“Does anyone live here?” I asked.
“Goblins don’t live in cities,” Thistle said. “We’re not like you humans, wanting to live on top of each other. Most of us are solitary, and we live in barrows connected by family and clan. This,” she said, gesturing to the storefronts around us, “is where we trade.”
“Trade?” I was surprised. “Goblins conduct business with each other?”
The sour look was back on Thistle’s face. “Yes. Obviously.”
There were signs above each open threshold, goblin sigils. Family crests, perhaps. Perhaps this one indicated gold work, that one gem-cutting. I had seen some astonishing works of art in the Underground, works that were far more deftly made than those made by human hands. Goblin-made objects of legend had always been treasure beyond measure in Constanze’s stories; wars had been waged for their possession, empires had fallen to acquire them.
“A lot of effort to build a city that will never be lived in,” I murmured. My eyes swept over the elaborately carved arches, the graceful fa?ades and storefronts—all for nothing.
“It wasn’t always this way,” Twig put in. “Goblins never gathered in cities; we always conducted our business in the open air, in groves and other sacred places in the world above.”
“What changed?”
Twig shrugged. “Der Erlk?nig. When he took the throne, he brought many strange customs with him.”
I frowned. “My Goblin King?” I corrected myself. “This Goblin King?”
Thistle wore a dark look. “Der Erlk?nig is Der Erlk?nig. It is only you mortals who care where one ends and the other begins.”
“Look here, we’ve arrived at the clothier,” Twig said jovially. She bustled me past a dark threshold into a large room. I was about to admonish Twig for her transparent attempt to distract me, when I became distracted indeed.
The clothier was laid out like a large shop, with dresses in the “window displays,” and gowns hanging on dress forms. A large mirror made of polished copper stood in the corner, and fairy lights illuminated the space: glowing, floating dust motes that gave everything a soft, diffuse look. K?the would have loved this.
The thought of my sister was sharper than needles and pins, my heart a pincushion of sorrow. I thought of her running her hands over the sumptuous bolts of fabric at the clothier’s in our village, her summer-blue, beauty-loving eyes drinking in the rich velvets, the elaborate brocades, the vibrant colors, the shimmering silks and satins. How I both loathed and loved visiting the shops with my sister. Loathed because I would never be as lovely as she, loved because her delight was infectious. I brushed away the moisture from my lower lashes.
“Ah, fresh meat.”
I jumped when another goblin materialized at my feet. He wore a knotted measuring ribbon about his neck, with a few pins in his mouth. The tailor. Upon closer inspection, I realized the pins in his mouth were in fact whiskers. Steel-tipped whiskers.
“Yes, this is Der Erlk?nig’s latest.” Thistle pushed me forward.
The tailor sniffed. “Not much to look at.” He peered into my face. “Looks familiar, though.”