Page 117 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“You’resorry?” Lorelei felt nearly hysterical now. “I understand, of course, why you did what you did. But after the war was over, I thought . . .”I thought you would come back for me. The words caught in her chest like a burr. “You have more responsibilities now, I know. If you didn’t want me, you could have said so. If you don’t loveme—”

“Of course I love you, you impossible, oblivious,self-martyring—”

“You . . .” Lorelei could not even delight in those words she’d yearned to hear for so long. She felt as though she were about to catch flame. “What else was I supposed to think? You never wrote. You didn’t even say goodbye. I would have thought you were dead had I not seen your letters for Wilhelm come through, or all the shrines raised to you in the city, soI...Whatare you doing?”

Sylvia lowered herself to her knees and took Lorelei’s hand. “I tried to write. I did, in fact, many times. But you are a very difficult woman to get ahold of, Lorelei Kaskel. You never replied. I thinkIshould be the one who is angry.”

Her tone was light, almost teasing. Lorelei couldn’t make sense of it. All those letters were forher? She’d never bothered to check. Why would she, considering they’d arrived at herofficeand not her flat? God. She had been passing those letters along to Wilhelm formonths. Why had he not said anything? Knowing Sylvia, they probably contained all mannerof...offlorid declarations and God knew what else. Now that she thought about it, he had occasionally looked at her with a mysterious little smile onhis faceor—moreinexplicably—recitedpoetry of uncertain provenance and asked her opinion. Poetry! She wanted to lie down and die.

“I’ve been busy,” she croaked.

Twilight darkened the sky, and candlelight bloomed in all the windows of the university’s buildings. The nights were arriving sooner and sooner as autumn nipped hungrily at the edges of summer, but they were still warm and humid. The fireflies blinked like stars.

“As have I.” Sylvia carefully took Lorelei’s wrist in her hand and raised it to her lips. She kissed the heel of her palm, a gesture of courtly grace. The warmth of her lips was blistering, even through Lorelei’s gloves. “I have lost count of how many villages I’ve visited and how many ‘miracles’ I have been asked to perform. On top of that, we are preparing for the harvest season, and it has been an endless challenge to reach an agreement in my court regarding our relationship with Brunnestaad. However, I think matters have been settled.”

Lorelei wasn’t quite sure what Sylvia was saying anymore. Her head was spinning. Heike and Wilhelm had married last month, but he had a sister. It made sense, of course, to unite their families. “Congratulations. When is your wedding?”

Sylvia’s eyes sparkled. “When would you like it to be?”

“Don’t mock me,” Lorelei whispered.

“I am being very serious.” She sounded a bit cross now. This was not off to a good start. Lorelei opened her mouth, but Sylvia barreled onward with what Lorelei was now convinced was a script she’d prepared. “One word from you, and I shall be the happiest woman in the universe.”

“What.”

“Not that one,” Sylvia said.

“I . . .” Lorelei blinked hard. But when she opened her eyes, Sylvia von Wolff was still kneeling before her. This was a dream there was no waking from. She looked genuinely apprehensive. It did not suit her. “I hope you understand that I will make every day of your life more difficult than the last, more complicated than it otherwise would be.”

“I welcome it.”

“We...Wewill bicker endlessly, you know. In the court and outside it. This changes nothing.”

“I’d expect no different.”

“My duties to theking—”

“Can be balanced withliving, assuming I cannot steal you away for myself.” Sylvia smiled at her. “Please, Lorelei. There is so much to do in this one glorious life we were gifted. We can travel. We can write. We can ride mara through open fields and run wild alongside the kornhunds. We can swim with nixies and tame lindworms, and maybe someday, with time, the world will realize there was never anything wrong with someone like me loving someone like you.”

“That is a fantasy,” Lorelei whispered. “The loveliest fairy tale I have heard in all my life.”

“Yes,” Sylvia said, with such emphatic tenderness. “But it’s ours.”

Lorelei could do nothing else but drop to her knees and kiss her. She pushed Sylvia down into the grass. When she pulled back, breathless, Sylvia fixed her with a smile as bright as the sun itself. In all her folktales, never was there an ending so sweet and strange as this.

“Yes. I will marry you, you romantic fool,” Lorelei said against her lips. “May we write many more together.”