Page 23 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

As far as she was concerned, there were only two viable suspects. Johann: a soldier and zealot who despised her enough to frame her, refused to acknowledge an Albisch queen, and disagreed with Wilhelm’s relative tolerance. If he truly believed Brunnestaad would be overrun with people he deemed lesser beings, then of course he would fight to preserve what was his.

And then there was Heike. Less convincing, certainly, but Lorelei could see a motive. She’d quarreled with Sylvia foryears—andhad been left to simmer with her jilted, thwarted ambition. If she wanted to prevent Sylvia’sascension—orspite Wilhelm for overlookingher—thensabotaging the expedition was certainly one way to do it.

She could not accuse either of them without proof, of course, but investigating could very well get her killed. The moment they suspected she was on their trail would be the moment she made a target of herself.

And yet, she couldn’t deny her own curiosity any more than she could deny the spirit of justice rising up within her. Ziegler had chosen her for a reason. To escape death, she would have to think like Ziegler: holistically. Everything was connected. Just as magic pointed back to its source, so did everything the killer had done. More importantly, she would have to think like a folklorist. This group was nothing more than a collection of folktales she had to catalogue and dissect. She would pry them openslowly—andshe would do it with them being none the wiser.

All to serve a king who would scapegoat her without a second thought.

He claimed he wanted the Ursprung to stabilize Brunnestaad, but now she wasn’t so sure. With the power of the Ursprung, Wilhelm could drown whole armies of men where they stood. He could flood their enemies’ farmlands and starve them slowly. He would use it freely to get whatever he wanted.

Does it even matter?Wilhelm was a tolerant enough king. He had incited no pogroms against the Yevani. He had not expelled them. Shewould take him over an unknown any day. Once this was over, she would have his ear and her freedom.

Everything else came after.

She could do this. Under the right pressure, one of them would snap. They’d confess, or else make a fatal mistake. Or maybe they alreadyhad—somethingshe’d overlooked. She tugged on the knob of a drawer, only to find it locked. The next one rattled uselessly, too, and the one after that.

No matter. Lorelei uncorked a flask she kept in her pocket. Drawing in a steadying breath, she focused on the water inside until she felt her awareness expand. With a wave of her hand, it rose serpentine from its prison and coiled around the lock. Lorelei squeezed her fist, and frost bloomed over the metal. She rifled through the sheer number ofthingspiled on Ziegler’s desk until she found a letter opener with a delicately engraved pearl handle. Before she could talk herself out of it, she bashed in the lock with the butt of the handle. The metal dropped to the ground with a brittleclink. Shards of ice skittered across the floor.

The drawer was completely empty.

She thumbed at her lip. Whoever had done this intended to keep them from moving forward. No one but Lorelei knew how Ziegler organized her files, whichwas...underno system that made sense. The killer had likely taken them to peruse at their leisure. She tucked that observation away for later. For now, she knew what to do. Wilhelm had handed her a knife. It was time to turn it on the others.

***

They gathered in the war room. Tension hung as thick as fog in the air as she surveyed each of them. No one dared to look at her, as if the truth would shine out of their eyes. Lorelei very much doubted it.

There was a popular folktale that Lorelei had transcribed many times over, one about a murdered Yeva. He’d been carting his wares back to the city when a tailor, down on his luck, hatched a wicked scheme: to killthe Yeva and steal the money he surely had. With his dying breath, the Yeva cursed the tailor:the bright sun shall bring all to light.

When life faded from his black eyes, the tailor was dismayed to find he hadn’t a single coin on him. Grousing at his rotten luck, the tailor buried the Yeva beneath a juniper tree and left his cart to rot.

Years later, the tailor’s fortunes had changed. His home was filled with beautiful things and tended by his beautiful wife. He sat on his porch with a cup of coffee, and as the sun rose to its full height, its rays glanced off his coffee and cast coins of golden light onto the ceiling. As he watched them gleam and waver, it reminded him of the Yeva he’d murdered so long ago. He laughed and laughed.

When his wife came to ask what was so funny, the tailor said,Ah, the bright sun would very much like to bring all to light, but it cannot.

When his wife pressed him on what he meant and gave him sweet assurances that she would tell no one else, he confessed all that he’d done toher—alongwith the Yeva’s curse. Within hours, of course, the entire neighborhood knew of his crime, and when he stood trial the next day, the tailor was condemned to death.

Lorelei had never drawn any satisfaction in that tale. What comfort could be found in a warning about the folly of lonely, gossiping wives? At twelve years old, she’d learned there was no real justice in this world.

Lorelei threw the sealed letter onto the table. “We’ve received a response from the king.”

Each of them read it in strained silence. When Heike finished, she tore the parchment in half and buried her face in her hands. “Why would he leave us here?”

“He’s trying to prevent a civil war,” Adelheid said coolly. “It’s a calculated risk.”

“I agree.” Lorelei folded her hands beneath her chin. “Ziegler was an outsider to yourgroup—asam I. I imagine he assumes you won’t turn on each other.”

“Of course we wouldn’t,” Ludwig said wanly. “We promised, after all.”

Lorelei sensed there was a story. “A promise?”

At first, no one spoke.

“Our territories were annexed in the First War of Unification,” Sylvia offered. “The negotiations in the wake of that campaign were bitter, and our parents were often in Ruhigburg on official business. But while our parents tore each other apart in court, the six of us played together. I remember those days fondly.”

Ludwig raised his eyebrows. “Even the day we left you stranded at the lake?”

The others snickered. Even Adelheid cracked a thin smile.