Page 67 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

She had not said that, but even she had the good sense not to belabor the point. “Perhaps some gratitude would be in order.”

“Thank you.” Sylvia rested her hand over Lorelei’s. “Truly.”

“You’re welcome,” she said stiffly. “I would have done the same for anyone.”

For a moment, they stared at each other. Lorelei cleared her throat and extricated her hand from Sylvia’s. Desperate to focus on something,anything, else, she sat up and looked out over the water.

It was a perfect mirror of the sky, serene and glittering with the cold light of a thousand stars. They were so bright, it seemed to Lorelei that there truly were stars submerged here. It would be a simple thing to scoop one out and swallow it whole.

It struck her for the first time that they’d done it. They’d found it.

“It’s beautiful,” Sylvia said quietly.

It was. But Sylvia was so much more beautiful. Lorelei blinked to clearthatthought away.

“Indeed,” she rasped. “Now let’s make camp and dry off. I don’t intend to die after all that.”

Lorelei began pulling water from the weave of her coat. Droplets floated around her as she worked. This cold would kill them within an hour. She felt more than she saw Sylvia watching her with the rapt attention of a spooked woodland creature.

She refuses to use magic. It upsets her too much.

Rumor had it she’d been quite capable with magic. What must she have seen to swear off it forever? What must she have done herself? Lorelei couldn’t imagine Sylvia having a true capacity for cruelty.

Somehow, she found herself asking, “May I do yours?”

“Please.” Then, remembering herself, Sylvia added, “If you’re offering, it would be rude to say no.”

After Lorelei dried their clothes as best she could, they ran to fetch their backpacks, abandoned at the shore of the lake below them. By the time they returned and finished assembling the tent with their clumsy, half-frozen figures, they were both shivering andirritated—butat least they could now change into warmer clothes.

Lorelei emerged first while Sylvia bandaged her wound. Soon, she joined her at the Ursprung’s edge.

“How do you think it works?” Lorelei asked. “In all the tales, it grants power to those it’schosen—orto those foolish enough to take it.”

“Single-minded as always,” Sylvia muttered with unmistakable fondness. “I’m not sure. In the legend, the boy fell into the water. There is only one way to know for certain, of course.”

“Don’t,” she said, perhaps too quickly.

“What, you think I’m not worthy of it?” Sylvia tried for a cocksure smile. “I am no strangerto...Howhave you put it? Headlong rushes into danger?”

“Idiocy,” Lorelei amended. The levity evaporated from Sylvia’s face. “Still. I cannot ask you to do that.”

“It isn’t idle curiosity.” Her voice grew somber. “I want to know what kind of weapon we’re handing Wilhelm. My duty demands that much of me.”

Dread sat heavily in Lorelei’s stomach. She did not like it. She liked it even less that she could not argue with her. “Shall I push you in, then?”

Sylvia gave a startled laugh. “I’d prefer to go to my doom with some dignity, thank you.”

Lorelei could not bear to watch. What would she do if Sylvia’s body rejected it? If the life began to bleed out of her, or if she emerged, like the thief from the lindworm’s cave, a stranger?

“Don’t fret,” said Sylvia. “If nothing else, it’s warm. See?”

She touched her palm to the surface, and the entire world held its breath. The wind stopped. The snowflakes froze in midair, twinkling in the moonlight. The stars reflected on the Ursprung’s surface dulled, until the water shone as black as a moonless night. In this preternatural stillness, it felt as though something unknowable and ancient had turned its eye toward them.

Sylvia’s expression slackened with startled embarrassment, as though she’d spoken out of turn at a dinner party, rather than carelesslyawakened the source of all magic. If Lorelei were not so terrified of what came next, she might have shouted at her.

A suggestion of a voice skittered through her mind, as elusive as the patter of rainfall or a breeze whispering through an empty field.Ask your question.

Lorelei stiffened with surprise. “This isn’t the Ursprung.”