“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I jumped. A changeling appeared, as suddenly as though he had walked through the rocky walls surrounding the lake.
“Yes,” I said cautiously. I had never actually exchanged words with a changeling before. They were the Goblin King’s silent servitors, the swoonworthy swains at the Goblin Ball, the lost and hungry children of the world above, the most mysterious and monstrous denizens of the Underground. I knew next to nothing about them, save that they had been “the product of a wish.” I thought of the night I had made a wish, when Josef was a baby, dying of scarlet fever.
“They are dangerous, you know, the Lorelei.” The changeling sidled closer and I tried not to let my discomfort show. Despite everything, I pitied the creatures, pitied their half-life, their liminal existence. “Beautiful, but dangerous.”
“Yes,” I said again. “I nearly succumbed to their spell the last time I crossed.”
The changeling’s flat, black eyes—goblin eyes in that human face—studied me. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “Der Erlk?nig saved me.”
He nodded, as though this explained everything. “Of course. He would not want you to discover their greatest secret.”
“And what is that?”
The changeling tilted his head. “That they guard the gateway into the world above.”
A cold, ringing sensation numbed me from head to toe. “A gateway? There is … a gateway to the world above?”
He nodded. “Yes. It lies on the far side of the lake.”
I stared at the lake, at its dark, dark depths, black like obsidian. Like death. Yet on the other side was light. Light and life. If only I could …
“It’s not safe.” The changeling watched me closely. “You cannot cross without a guardian.”
Shame lit my face, and I averted my gaze. I had not known my thoughts to be so transparent.
“Here,” he said suddenly. “I have a present for you.”
Startled, I opened my hand, and he dropped a bundle of wildflowers into my palm. “Thank you,” I said in bewilderment. The flowers were nothing more than clover blossoms, prettily tied with a length of ribbon.
The changeling shook his head. “It’s not from me. She left it for you in the Goblin Grove.”
I went still. “Who?”
“A girl,” he said. “A woman in a red cloak with sunshine hair.”
K?the.
“How—how—” Goblins could only roam the earth during the uncounted days of winter.
“The grove is one of the few sacred spaces left where the Underground and the world above overlap,” the changeling said indifferently. “The girl came by and said your name before dropping the flowers. I took them when she left.”
Of course. Now I understood. I understood why it was always to the Goblin Grove Josef and I ran as children, why it was the only place I ever saw the Goblin King, why I had gone there to sacrifice my music and gain entrance to the Underground.
It was a threshold.
The glimmerings of an idea began to form, fragile and fraught. I turned away from it, afraid to look for the hope rising in me. The changeling turned to go.
“Wait,” I said. “A moment, please.”
The changeling folded his hands and cocked his head to one side. His face was human, but his expression was entirely goblin-like in its inscrutability.
“What—what can you tell me of my brother?”
“Your brother?”
“Yes,” I choked out. “Josef.”
His black eyes glittered. “All you mortals are so alike,” he said. “Quick to be born, quick to die. Like mayflies in the night.”
“But,” I said. “Josef is not dead.”
A slow smile spread across his lips. “Are you so certain of that?”
I turned my head away. “What—” I began, my throat hoarse. “What is Josef?”
The changeling did not reply, but I already knew the answer. In some ways, I had always known the answer. My brother died that night I heard him crying, when the fever ravaged his mortal body, leaving nothing but a corpse. Before the scarlatina had taken him, my brother had been rosy-cheeked and hale, a chubby, good-natured baby. The morning after the fever broke, the thing left in his cradle had been sallow and thin, a queer, quiet creature. We all thought it was the fever. But I knew better.
“How can a changeling live in the world above?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “They can’t, except by the power of—”
“—a wish,” I finished. I wanted to laugh. “I know.”
“No.” The changeling’s voice was amused. “By the power of love.”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I was falling. Suddenly it seemed like the rules of the Underground were changing, and I couldn’t grasp their meaning.
“Love?”
The changeling shrugged again. “You love him, don’t you? Your brother?”
Was he my brother? How could I possibly ask myself that? Josef’s nature did not change the fact that he was the other half of my soul, my amanuensis, the gardener of my heart. Of course he was my brother.