Page 113 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

The two of them made a strange pair: Sylvia with her glowing eyes, and Ludwigwith...well,there was the bark scaling his neck, of course, which had of late sprouted a branch and a few tentative leaves. But his eyes had taken on a green cast, and when you peered into them, you could just make out an ash grove reflected in his pupils. If he was upset by the transformation, he did not share his feelings with Lorelei. But sometimes, she caught him standing on the deck with such stillness, it was as though he’d taken root there. In those moments, he seemed so unknowably lonely, she left him to his brooding.

When they’d told him what had befallen Adelheid and Johann on the Vanishing Isle, he’d said only,God. What a nightmare.

He did not care to discuss what happened on the night he vanished. He and Johann had not exactly been close, but the betrayal clearly unsettled him more than he wanted to admit. Lorelei did not push him, partly out ofconsideration—mostlybecause Heike radiated sheer malice any time Lorelei so much as looked at him askance. They’d become inseparable since they boarded thePrinzessinagain.

“At any rate,” Sylvia said with forced cheer, “Wilhelm is not anentirelyunreasonable man. I am sure he will be pleased.”

Lorelei hoped she was right.

One week ago, they had left the Vanishing Isle behind. Once they’d oriented themselves and found the nearest town, Lorelei had hired a courier to deliver her report on the expedition, a dossier sealed in navy wax and stamped with Ziegler’s signet ring. Inside, she’d enclosed a description of what exactly had unfolded on the Ruhigburg Expedition, as well as Ziegler’s journal entries and legal documents: evidence of her and Anja von Wolff’s betrayal.

Somehow, that was easier than composing a letter to her family.

Once again, she found herself ill-suited to the task of expressing hersentiments in words. How much of the truth could they handle? How willing was she to pick at her wounds before they’d even had a chance to mend? She’d drafted and shredded no fewer than five iterations before she settled on pragmatism. She would return tothem—haleand mostlywhole—ina week’s time. She could not resist adding, as a postscript:

I love you. I am sorry.

Now, thePrinzessinground to a halt in the harbor, and the dockworkers hauled them in with thick, fraying ropes. The pitch-dark waters of the Vereist lapped eagerly at the hull. After everything, Lorelei had almost missed the bland, marshy climes of Ruhigburg.

Almost.

The four of them made their way down the gangplank and toward the company of soldiers. Behind them, carriages waited like snow globes placed on a shelf, all of them sparkling with wide glass windows. Four, she noted. So Wilhelm was separating them, as if they hadn’t had ample time to agree on their story already.

“Lorelei Kaskel, leader of the Ruhigburg Expedition,” Lorelei said. “What is the meaning of this?”

One of thesoldiers—thehighest-ranking of them, if the stars jangling on his shoulders were anything to goby—steppedforward. “We’ve been sent by His Imperial Majesty to escort the four of you to the palace.”

Heike extended an impatient hand. Her bag dangled from her elegant fingertips. She shook it, and all of her instruments clattered menacingly. “Well, what are all of you standing around for, then? If you’re going to be so rude, at least make yourselves useful.”

***

As the wheels clattered on the cobblestones, the carriage lurched nauseatingly. Lorelei could hardly form a coherent thought with this godforsaken contraption rattling her skull like a can full of coins. Outside her window, the palace rose up like a leviathan from the black band of the river. It looked even more imposing in the daylight, a coldand precise work of architecture seemingly chiseled from ice. The sun glistered on its spires, bright enough that she had to look away. Unlike the night of the ball, there were no flowers, no laughter, no sweet anticipation to soften its edges. There was only the solid rock of her own dread in her gut and the grim reality of those gaudy black doors.

They had done everything he asked. So why did she feel as though she were about to be punished? The longer she dwelled on it, the hotter her anger sparked. After everything they’d sacrificed for him, howdarehe treat them likestrangers—likeprisoners? She sorely regretted not having Sylvia here to vent her spleen on. Or perhaps she’d make Lorelei feel better. No, unlikely. Sylvia’s unrelentingcheer—orinsultedpride—woulddo nothing but wind her up tighter.

When her driver opened the carriage door for her, she ignored his hand and thundered up the staircase, the fall of her coat like a skein of shadow behind her. The doors opened for her as if enchanted, but it was only the work of two very startled footmen. Clearly, she was not what either of them had expected.

“Where is Wilhelm?”

One of them silently pointed down a corridor.

The royal palace made thePrinzessinlook like a cheap toy. The marble was lunar-pale beneath her feet and threaded with gold, and the walls were coated in a layer of water so delicate, it looked like glass. It fell eternally from the ceiling by some work of magic or engineering Lorelei did not have the time or patience to puzzle over.

A second set of footsteps echoed urgently off the walls. Whoever it was breathed in a way Lorelei could describe only asdeliberate, as if they wanted to let her know they were not at all pleased about having to hurry after her. “MissKaskel—”

Lorelei shoved open the doors to the throne room.

“His Majesty will see you in there,” the servant pursuing her said limply. The sound of her voice was swallowed when the doors fell shut with an ominousbang.

The rest of the expedition already stood before the dais. The firstthing Lorelei noticed was Anja von Wolff, perched beside Wilhelm with all the stiff elegance of a statue upon its plinth. She looked like she belonged there, with her regal profile and her practiced look of courtly disdain. But her wrists were shackled, and a set of guards lingered near the door closest to her.

Wilhelm regarded Lorelei with a bone-deep exhaustion. He slouched in his throne as though he were a schoolboy drowsing in his lessons. His cloak was deep indigo, finely woven, and pinned in place with a fat sapphire brooch. His crown, beaten thin in the shape of a wave, was nestled into his dark hair.

“Is that the last of you, then?” he asked. “I see we’ve had a bit of a retention problem.”

Sylvia’s temper flared, and she looked for all the world like she was about to fly across the dais and strangle him. “Is that all you have to say to us? Don’t youdaremake light of this!”

“Forgive me,” Wilhelm said thinly. “I’ve found myself at something of a loss for words since I received your briefing. What thehellhappened out there? How could you fuck this up so spectacularly?”