“I – am dealing with this pretty well at the moment. I don’t believe this goblin business happened - or at least it’s not happening now. I don’t think it’s a window into some other timeline where at this moment your grandpa is alive and young and a goblin. I believe something real is going on here though. There’s a reason the mirror is showing it. I’ve got a couple of theories I’m following up on. But, um. My dad. I was close with him. I mean – look at how this is affecting Gwendolyn and Alexander. I knew him longer than they did.”

“Mom.”

“Someone needs to be functioning, looking for solutions. Gart, I may be riding out before morning. Llewdor. Your father and I have come up with a plan.”

“I see. Yes.”

“Be there for your cousin, will you? Right now she needs to keep watching but eventually she’ll need to talk. And if you could be sure those two eat.”

“I will. And Mom?”

“Yes?”

“You’re going to get to the bottom of this, I know. Godspeed.”

All night Graham trailed the townsfolk overland. Their progress down the mountainside was slow. Despite his crushed ankle in its stolen, armoured boot, he could keep up decently. Bramble and the old folks were slowing the group down, and thank the stars that goblin physiognomy was more forgiving to injuries! At first he kept near as he dared, promising himself he would call out to them. He silently practiced the syllables, navigating the tricky shapes required to shout, “It’s me, Graham!”

Don’t think. Call them out. Get it over with. Either they will accept you or they will fear you. You’ll know. Do it now, or you never will.

He drew breath to shout. But he exhaled again and slowed his steps.

No. No, that was fear dressing itself up as courage. That was fear wanting an excuse. Wanting to see the horror anyone would have on their face after escaping goblin captivity, only to find a goblin tracking them. The villagers would gasp and draw into defensive positions and demand proof. That was normal! It would even be normal for them to fight. They could do all that and it would not alter the fact they were his loyal friends. But fear didn’t want to see it that way. It wanted them to do it so he could give up immediately, despair of their friendship, and run.

We’re not doing that.

“Hey, muffin lady,” whispered Amaya up ahead. “Either you’re so shocked by our escape that you can’t stop gasping just thinking about it, or you deserve to sit down a few seconds.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, apple strudel!” added Wente with concern.

“Not on your li--!” cried Bramble, puffing but with razors in her tone. A chorus of hushes cut her off. She added, more softly, “We are not stopping till we’re in the castle. Aye, with every lock in Daventry turned behind us!”

“Think of the baby--” Wente began, but he got no further.

“Exactly. Think of the baby. A mother just knows what her child needs, doesn’t she? Well, I just know my child needs to be born outside of a cage!”

“I -” Wente turned around and scanned the area, squinting through the darkness toward Graham, who tensed up despite himself. “I don’t think any of those things are following us,” said Wente dubiously without pausing in his scan. “If you only rested for five—”

“Hey, we gave her the chance,” said Amaya firmly. “She’ll speak up later if she needs it. Pregnant ladies get what they want.” She grabbed hold of a whipping thorn branch in their path and held it aside to let the others by.

When all had passed, Graham waited two minutes and ducked under it, though to his surprise ducking was unnecessary in his case. Beyond the thorns sprawled a great patch of ground moss. Ah. It was springy and cushioned his limp, he noticed with gratitude. And though he was letting the villagers outpace him, it would be all right. In his ordinary body, he’d surely have lost them in the forested snarls of the mountainside. But to his ears, distant footfalls were as clear as his own breaths: easy to ignore, but unmistakable when he focused on them. He hadn’t specifically tried smelling the air for his friends’ scent – he wasn’t quite ready to wrap his mind around that one – but the earthy, after-rain smells of the undergrowth and damp boulders were lusher than he remembered. Maybe it was just by comparison with prison.

And as for seeing in the dark! Graham had thought the luminous mushrooms and milky lanterns of the goblin lands pretty. They were nothing next to the overworld by night. The most ordinary stump or clump of moss gleamed wherever the moonlight touched it, teal and purple and strange rich green unlike anything. In his lift shaft there had been no light for his eyes to turn into colours. It was like the colours had been saved as an escape treat.

True courage would take this slowly. Would walk behind them unseen, as many hours as it took to ready his heart, ready it to trust them through the screaming and brandishing of improvised weapons. Manny’s lies could tear his heart apart all they wanted. But that would not stop him from readying it.

His heartbeat settled for the first time since he’d freed the chain from the gear and begun his escape. He stumbled on, at least a hundred yards behind his friends now.

“Are we really making for the palace?” asked Muriel uncertainly, her whisper clear as anything to Graham’s long ears.

“Seems the best place to stay safe,” answered Bramble. “Home doesn’t seem so safe anymore.”

“But they got the boy too,” said Chester. “Palace still seem safe?”

Silence fell, though they didn’t stop walking. “Safer,” said Bramble at last.

“If every one of you weren’t basically vulnerable sector,” said Amaya, more quietly than before, “I’d march back to those tunnels now. Try to track that king of ours down.”

“Oh rabbits,” said Muriel. “Graham. He’s still down there.”

Amaya grunted. “He won’t be for long. I’m gonna round up every tin can on guard in that castle and show those bat-shearing goblins what we think of kidnapping around here.”

“Oh! Um, well, you’ve got a better head for directions than I have,” murmured Wente. “Will you, um,  remember the way back?’

Amaya didn’t answer.

Now. The moment was now.

But before Graham could speak, the villagers began cheering. He hesitated. What in the--?

Simultaneously he stumbled, as the ground flattened sharply beneath him. His foot folded into his leg at an angle it shouldn’t have been capable of. Only hugging a young apple tree to his left kept Graham from faceplanting. Pain shocked him, like his ankle was fracturing in new places. He hissed, clapped one hand over his mouth to stifle crying out. Still hanging on to the tree with the other arm, he sank to his knees. Thanks be that his friends’ shouts drowned him out.

“I never thought I’d be so glad to see that beaten up old signpost you can’t hardly read!”

“And I was so afraid we were going down the wrong side of the mountain!”

“Why, we’re not five minutes’ walk from the waterfall!”

“Let’s not let our guard down too soon, though. Those curlicue-heads could still be prowling around. I mean, they did come right into the town. But… yeah, nice to have got this far.”

“Come on, everyone! Come on!”

And they were off again, with renewed vigour. Graham still clung to the tree, kneeling, swallowing over and over as though the pain were an awful medicine he could gulp down and be done with. He shouldn’t have been able to walk on a foot as damaged as his must have been– not in his human experience, anyway. He heard them getting farther and farther away. He could have asked them for help, he supposed. But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to communicate everything he’d need to quickly in such a state.

Graham walked his hands down the trunk and backed up till he could crawl on all fours. He considered just letting himself down all the way and pulling bracken over his body. There was tomorrow. He could sleep away the pain’s freshness here in the bushes. Why not make his way into Daventry by sunlight?

Because now he still had his resolve. When he woke he’d have to start again. Maybe he’d chicken out. In the dark he could choose his moment to be seen.

But – but he couldn’t crawl all the way to town.

He raised his head. From this angle, he could make out better the signpost beyond the tangle of branches. Across the road, he could just see the mud puddle (looking oddly purple to his goblin eyes) beneath the sharp mountain drop. He’d fallen into it more than three years ago when he’d first arrived in these parts. So, that meant that just up the way… Ah. Yes. Just like that, he’d decided.

It took him even longer than he’d have guessed to scrabble, hand by hand and knee by knee, to the riverbank. When he finally reached the great summoning horn at the bridge landing, he permitted himself a grim smile of accomplishment. Showing himself was going to be hard, but somehow less hard than stepping into the moonlight and letting the townsfolk see him first. He grabbed hold of the horn’s mouthpiece, hauled himself up onto one foot, and blew with all the little might he had left.

The rumbling blast reverberated through his whole body, but it didn’t compare with the gigantic footfalls that shook through him before the sound had fully died away. His ankle shivered with new pain every thump. He clung to the mouthpiece hard as he could. He thought he was blacking out, but when he opened his eyes he found he was still standing upright.

An enormous, stoney hand dove down and scooped him up.

“Aha!” cried the familiar troll smugly, rolling Graham between his thumb and long finger like a cigar, “If this is how it’s going to be, Olfie won’t even have to set anymore traps! I told the little ramrod man that the puny goblins would be dumb enough to do this if we just left the horns for them!”

“Stop!” cried Graham resisting the horrible urge to bite his way free, as Olfie’s grip tightened. “Stop, stop! I mean – Olfie! It’s me! It’s me! Graham! Graham! It’s me!” The words sounded like a mouthful of pebbles, and screaming did nothing for the clarity, but Olfie suddenly paused.

“What’s that? Ohoho!” Olfie held him so close to his eye that Graham could have believed he was about to use him as a jeweler’s loup. “This one’s awful chatty for a goblin! ‘Stop’ – if you’re gonna learn one word, that’s a pretty good one.”

“Olfie,” cried Graham, forcing himself to be calm and think the words through. “It’s me, Graham. Graham. No, stop!” He squirmed as Olfie squeezed him harder.

Olfie frowned, and threat replaced amusement in his voice. “Stop, huh? You want us to stop, you goblins gotta stop first,” he growled. “Don’t you know people don’t like it when you shoot catapults at ‘em and take their families? Olfie doesn’t usually like chewy goblin elbows and knees, but you did trespass, and with Baker Man gone, Olfie’s gotta take what he can get.” He opened his cavernous mouth, tilted his head back, and tossed Graham into the air like a popcorn kernel.

“IT’S KING GOOSIE!” screeched Graham. He spun helplessly in space. Perhaps it was a mercy that his body ended up facing skyward as he fell, so that his last sight would be the Shining Stars, not Olfie’s gnashing teeth -

Suddenly the fingers were back, and he was spinning again, as Olfie grabbed him clumsily from the air. Graham slipped awkwardly from one hand into the other as Olfie tried to get a hold on him, like a ball in the hands of a beginner juggler.

“King Goosie?” said Olfie in disbelief, at last balancing Graham in one palm and propping him up against his thumb to sit. He held him up to the ridge of his nose and went cross-eyed looking at him. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding. That’s the second time Olfie’s almost eaten you! Lookie here, li’l Goosie. Olfie deeply, deeply apologizes. His eyes aren’t what they used to be. He’s been picking up goblins from the traps he set around the forests, and thought you were a goblin.”

Strangely, Graham found himself not gritting his teeth courageously, nor fighting tremours in his voice. Instead, he found himself chuckling bashfully and scratching the back of his neck. “I am,” he laughed. “A goblin. Yep. Goblin. That’s me.”

He wasn’t sure how much of that had been intelligible to Olfie, but the bridge troll shut one eye, and began turning his hand about to look Graham over from all angles. And then Olfie actually blushed. Graham hadn’t thought trolls could blush, but then again, maybe with a new spectrum of colours in his eyes, Graham was going to notice all kinds of things he hadn’t picked up on before.

“Whoa. You’re right,” said Olfie. “Gosh. This is really embarrassing, King Goosie, but Olfie never noticed. All this time Olfie just kind of assumed that if you weren’t a goose, you had to be human. I mean, now that I get a closer look at you, you’re kind of a weird-looking human, no offense…”

Graham’s chuckle almost turned into a high-pitched giggle at that. No, no, don’t go there. Hysteria won’t do you any favours. Just breathe and enunciate slowly. “Well, yes, yes, I am human. Usually. You weren’t wrong. Just – I’ve been kidnapped, and –"

“You’ve been what?”

“Kid. Napped.”

“Olfie knows you’ve been kidnapped. Everyone’s been looking for you. Ramrod man’s been having – uh, what’s Matt call it? – uh, conniptions.”

“Wait, wait - I’m King Goosie, Wente’s Baker Man, Number One is Ramrod Man, but Matt’s Matt?”

“Didn’t really catch that – you’re talking real funny tonight. You got a cold or something?”

“Uh, never mind.” Graham slowed down again. “Olfie, listen to me. You’ve got to take me to the castle. The rest of the townsfolk are on their way there too. Tell the guards to – wait.” Something from a minute or two earlier clicked. “Wait, wait. Catapults? Olfie, what’s happening?”