Page 3 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

A glittery sound caught Lorelei’s attention. A tangle of pendants rested against Sylvia’s collarbone, each one engraved with the icon of a saint. Lorelei could not recall the last time she’d seen her without them; they’d always struck her as unusual. Here in the province of Neide, non-Yevani tended to be more restrained in their faith. But Sylvia, Albisch through and through, prayed as ostentatiously as she did anything else. She unclasped them one by one until they lay in a heap beside her. Just like that, she carried no wards that might whittle the edges of the nixie’s magic.

Despite herself, Lorelei understood the morbid fascination of the crowd. She’d never watched Sylvia work before. Admittedly, there was a sick sort of thrill that came from watching someone hurl themselves headlong into danger. In recent years, Sylvia had made a name for herself due toher...unusualmethodology. She published trivial little stories of her adventures with the wildeleute, ones in which she purposefully ensnared herself in fairy magic in order to record the experience. Her travelogues enraptured herreaders—bamboozledthem into calling her a visionary. But there was no scientific merit to them whatsoever. They were an affront to empiricism, based on threadbare anecdotal dataand—worse—whimsy.Lorelei knew by now that Sylvia was only exceptionallylucky—andincredibly stupid. A nixie’s song held a powerful hypnotic magic; countless had drowned under their spell.

The nixie eased herself onto a smooth rock jutting from the river’s surface, and Lorelei did her best not to recoil. The nixie’s hair was tangled with lotus flowers and as slick as a knot of cattails. It cascaded over her bony shoulders and pooled in her lap. Where a human’s legs would begin, her hips were covered in iridescent scales and tapered into a long, serpentine tail. Her blue lips parted just enough to reveal the barest glimpse of her serrated teeth. It was a smile that sent a bolt of fear straight through Lorelei.

“Von Wolff,” Lorelei warned.

“Peace, Lorelei.” The fact Sylviasangit only added insult to injury. “She’s just curious.”

She hardly saw how that was reassuring. A clamor went up behind them. Lorelei glanced over her shoulder to see that their audience had grown innumber—andgrown bolder. They pressed in closer, chattering excitedly and pointing.

Idiots, all of them.

“Get back,” Lorelei snapped, “unless you want to drown today.”

Ahisspulled her attention back to the water. As the nixie drew in a breath, the membranous gills on her rib cage rippled and flared. Then she began to sing, and all the world went perfectly still.

It was a song like thesea—thesweetest song Lorelei had ever heard. It swelled and crested, inexorable and irresistible as it wove around Sylvia’s in perfect harmony. One moment, Lorelei had her feet planted solidly on the earth. The next, she felt weightless, soaring. Never before had she feltso...complete,as though she breathed in tandem with every being on earth. For one glorious, incandescent moment, she saw it: the vibrant, wild beauty of the world. Aether was within all ofthem—withineverything. It glimmered in the mist, and the Vereist sparkled with a thousand different colors, so bright it nearly brought tears to her eyes. How had she ever thought it so dark?

She took one step toward the water, then another. Just as she toed the edge of the riverbank, the iron chain around her neck singed her, as though she’d touched a white-hot brand. With a gasp, Lorelei snapped back to her senses. Theriver—onceagain black and dull asiron—churnedwinkingly below her. She nearly swore aloud. If she didn’t get herself together, she was going to drown in shallow water like a doddering fool.

Focus, damn you.

She bit down on the inside of her lip. As the tang of copper coated her tongue, the nixie’s magic dissipated completely. A horrid keening cut through the haze of her thoughts and set her blood to ice.

Sothatwas the true sound of its song.

Sylvia, however, remained under its enchantment. She stood perfectly still, with a strange and shining look of rapture in her eyes. It was a rare thing to examine her up close, when she was always in motion. Her eyeswere a shade of gray so pale they were almost violet. Like most of the nobility, she had a fine latticework of dueling scars across her temples: each one a dubious badge of honor for enduring a blow to the face. The thickest one, gashed across her cheek, shone like a sheet of sunlit ice. Sylvia set down her guitar, still humming her eerie, tuneless song. The noise of the crowd swelled once again.

Somewhere in the din, Lorelei could make out someone shouting, “She’s doing it!”

A bolt of alarm shot through Lorelei. “What are you doing?”

Sylvia ignored her as she walked toward the river. The loose ends of her hair danced in the wind, the last red glare of the day illuminating it like white fire. The nixie extended a webbed hand to her. As Sylvia waded toward her, it was all too easy to imagine her slipping under. Her fine plum gown would bloom around her like a rose. Her silver hair would be stark as bone against the deep black of the river. Alas, Ziegler would never forgive Lorelei if she sat idly by while their naturalist waded to her death. She would have to intervene.

As a rule, Lorelei didn’t use her magic where anyone might see. But over the years, she’d grown adept at concealing it. Inhaling deeply, she called on her magic. Power unfurled through her chest and flowed down to the tips of her fingers. She imagined closing her fist around the aether rushing through the water,and—there.There was a brief moment of overwhelm, when her will pulled uselessly against the river. But then the connection snapped into place, and she felt the Vereist like an extension of herself, a phantom limb. Its current roared in her ears like the flow of her own blood. Sweat beaded on her brow. She didn’t have long before she lost her hold on it entirely, but she didn’t need much.

With an exhale, she sent the water skipping off itscourse—justenough to sweep the nixie from her perch. Sylvia jerked like her strings had been cut. At last, Lorelei let go of her magic. Relief and exhaustion settled heavily over her.

The nixie shot out of the water a moment later, fixing Lorelei with a look almost like indignation. With a toss of her hair, the nixie slippedback beneath the surface and disappeared. It was so startlingly human, it left Lorelei dumbfounded.

“Wait!” Sylvia called helplessly.

So help her, if Sylvia tried to pursue that beast . . .

Before she could think better of it, Lorelei closed the gap between them and took hold of her elbow. “Have you lost your mind? Get back herenow.”

Sylvia rounded on her with her mouth hinged open, no doubt to say something petulant and irritating, but Lorelei didn’t get a chance to hear it. Sylvia wrenched her arm away so vehemently, she lost herfooting—andtook Lorelei with her. For one horrible moment, time seemed to grind to a halt. The sounds of shrieks reached her from a thousand kilometers away.

Then, they toppled into the water.

Blackness enveloped her, so complete she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. The cold greedily snatched her breath away. Lorelei kicked her way to the surface and gasped in a lungful of air.

Sylvia had already crawled onto the shore, looking very much like a wet cat. She bristled, her dress clinging to her skin, her hair limp around her shoulders. The gathered masses had already begun to scatter, disappointment plain on their faces.

“Look what you’ve done now,” Sylvia said accusingly. “She was speaking to me.”

“WhatI’vedone?” It was hard to feel especially righteous with her hair plastered to her face. Her mouth tasted like river water and silt. She somehow managed to overcome the weight of her sodden greatcoat and hauled herself onto the riverbank. “That was entirely your fault.”