Page 18 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

Inside the war room, a dying oil lamp cast harsh shadows across the wall. A dark shape slumped over the table. Water dripped rhythmically from its fingers, which hung loose at its side. It ran off the table and spread across the floorboards like rot.

No, notwater—blood.

“Ziegler!”

The scope of Lorelei’s world narrowed to a pinprick as she approached the figure. No breath stirred it. Lorelei grabbed it by the shoulder and turned it over. Its head lolled at a grotesque angle, and its skin glowed with a horrible, waxen sheen. There was a stab wound in its chest, leaking sluggishly with blood. For a moment, Lorelei couldn’t make sense of it. What lay before her scrambled itself into meaninglessness.

Ziegler’s eyes stared unseeingly into Lorelei’s.

She choked on a scream; it burned in her throat like acid. Her breaths came shallow and frantic.

“No,” she murmured. “No, no, no.”

She was dead.

Ziegler’s pale blue lips were flecked with froth and parted in an unspoken accusation. Just over her shoulder, the wintry glow of a specter rose from the floorboards.

Aaron.

His eyes were as black as the Vereist boring into her, flung wide and sightless with fear. Blood trailed from his skull like a ribbon caught in the wind.

You abandoned me, he said.You killed me.

Her breaths came harder. “No,I—”

You killed her.

Lorelei couldn’t stop it then, and she couldn’t stop it now. Death followed her relentlessly. No matter how far she ran or how high she climbed, no matter how desperately she tried to steel herself against it, it would find her. What could she ever say to make him understand? “I’m sorry! Please forgive me, sheifale, please . . .”

Behind her, the floorboards moaned.

It’s in your head, she told herself.It’s all in your head.

But they didn’t stop. The footsteps slowing to a stop outside the war room were real.

The door creaked open and a soft voice called, “Lorelei?”

Five

AWOMAN STOOD IN THEdoorway with a delicate iron candlestick clutched in her hand. The flame dancing on its wick cast her face in a sallow glow. With her thin white shift and long white hair, she looked like something out of Lorelei’s most tormented dreams. Anotherghost—orelse a wiedergänger had found her. When they scented death or grief in the air, they swarmed like sharks to a spill of blood, wearing the faces of the dead.

“Get out.” Lorelei staggered toward her and filled the doorway with her height. Ghost or not, no one could come into this room. No one could lay eyes on Ziegler in this state. She neededtimeto think, to process. She needed . . .

With clinical detachment, Lorelei registered that she was being pulled out of the war room and lowered to the ground. She slid to a heap on the hallway floor, folding in on herself. It felt as though she were trapped behind glass with no way to break free. On the other side, the world was strangely distorted, something she could see but not touch. The ghost’s lips were moving, but Lorelei couldn’t make sense of what she was saying.

“Lorelei!” The sound of her name jolted her back to her senses. “Breathe.”

Shedid—orat least she tried. Every rattling breath she drew was agony. Through her delirium, Lorelei at last recognized that it was Sylvia holding her shoulders steady. Shame, hot and relentless, seared throughher. Of all people to see her like this, to witness how humiliatingly fragile she truly was, of course it washer. Her own death would be a blessing now. She wanted to drive her fist through the wall, to dip her power into the river and overturn the entire boat with the force of her rage. All those years ago, she had been too much of a coward to protect the ones she loved. This time, she had been too late.

Nothing would ever change.

“Close the door,” Lorelei snapped. “She’ll hear you.”

The dead’s souls lingered. To speak of their passing where they could hear was the highest form of disrespect she could imagine. She felt hysterical clinging to Yevanisch tradition now, but it was all she had to hold on to.

Sylvia did as she was asked without fuss. When she returned, she knelt in front of Lorelei and procured a handkerchief from somewhere on her person. Lorelei took it from her with trembling fingers and dabbed at the tears drying on her face. It was a tidily folded slip of plum silk trimmed in lace, as excessively frilly as Sylvia’s nightgown. Itsmelled—likeSylvia did,ofcourse—ofrose water and lemon cake. That one ridiculous detail managed to ground Lorelei. She breathed in steadily until the fog in her mind began to dissipate and the world around her felt more solid.

There were no ghosts here tonight.