Page 78 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“We’ve come this far and lost too much to give up now.” She prayed she sounded more assured than she felt. Through the delicate scrollwork of branches, the narrowed eye of the waning moon glared down at them. “We will give him the Ursprung, or we will give him nothing. We’ve no time to waste.”

Eighteen

IT TOOK THREE DAYSto reach thePrinzessin, where it lay in the river like a sleeping dragon, softly belching smoke. The relief Lorelei had felt upon seeing it vanished the instant she stepped onboard. She’d nearly forgotten the nauseating sway of thefloor—andthe repressive atmosphere was not helped by the crew, who had stared at Ludwig as though his curse were a catching thing.

Lorelei could not say she blamed them.

As soon as she scrubbed off the grime of the last two weeks in the washbasin, she shut herself in her room. The temptation to collapse into bed was almost too powerful to deny, but she could not afford to fall asleep. Instead, she paced restlessly. Water from her damp hair ran down the back of her neck and slipped into her collar like cold, searching fingers.

She would have to find Ziegler’s journal before the others caught on toher—orsaw her rummaging through the professor’s belongings. She waited until her eyes burned with exhaustion, until she was certain everyone else had fallen asleep. Then, she tucked a tarnished vesta case into her waistcoat’s pocket and draped her greatcoat over the back of her chair.

Lorelei cracked open her bedroom door, and cool air sighed into the room. Before she could think too hard about what she was doing, she stepped out onto the balcony.

The dark closed in on her immediately, but the ambient light from the moon above and the crew’s lanterns below made it tolerable. She could see the massive paddle wheel dipping into the lightless waters of the Vereist. It turned inexorably, half of it eerily vanishing and reappearing as it churned the water to black froth.

There were two blessings she could count on. One, there was no direct line of sight from the deck. And two, there was no one to disturb her on this side of the ship. In a neat row were her room, then Ziegler’s, then Ludwig’s, and lastly, her destination: the war room. Through the ringing in her ears, she could make out the low drone of the crew’s voices filtering up from below.

Now or never.

The doors leading into the war room were enormous, inlaid with windows that reflected the pitiless black of the night. By some miracle, they were unlocked. As Lorelei slipped inside, the warding bells mounted on the lintel chimed breathlessly. She muffled them with her fist before easing the doors shut again. Just as they settled, Lorelei drew up short at a flicker of movement in the glass.

Ziegler’s face loomed just over her shoulder.

Lorelei gasped, whirling around. In her haste, she knocked a book off its perch. It landed with a resonantthud. The plush carpet barely muffled the sound.

Nothing was behind her, but she couldfeelZiegler there, leering at her.

“Fuck,” she whispered.

Footsteps echoed just outside the war room. It was enough to rudely jolt Lorelei back into her body. She must have woken someone up. The dregs of her fear rooted her in place, but if she stood here gawking like a fool, she’d be found. She ducked behind the massive writing desk and did her best to quiet her panicked breathing.

The doors to the war room swung open. Lantern light spilled into the room, lapping at the toes of her boots. It was then she realized she’d left the book lying on the ground.

Careless. If she went down like this, she would never forgive herself.

“No, I didn’t hear anything at all,” Sylvia said, her voice overloud. As unconvincing as ever. Lorelei could have groaned aloud. “What do you think you heard?”

“It sounded like something fell,” Adelheid said skeptically.

A door’s hinges creaked as someone began rummaging through the closet on the other side of the room. Footsteps trod softly across the floorboards and stopped just in front of the desk. Lorelei held her breath.

After an agonizing moment, Sylvia said, “Nothing over here,” and slid the book underneath the desk with the toe of her boot.

“Strange.” Adelheid sounded puzzled. “I suppose it was nothing.”

“Perhaps there are ghosts on board,” Sylvia said conspiratorially.

Lorelei could practically hear Adelheid’s withering glare. “Perhaps.”

The latch of the door announced their departure. Lorelei counted ten seconds before she emerged. Complete, smothering darkness awaited her. She pulled the curtains shut over the glass doors, then withdrew her vesta case from its pocket and struck a match. The flame sparked into a long, ghostly taper, then sputtered. It traced the shape of the cluttered bookshelves and lacquered the massive table in the center of the room with a sickly glow. She lit the slumping candles on the desk and shook out her match. Smoke curled around her as she sat in the finely upholstered chair behind Ziegler’s desk.

I will find what you’ve kept from me.

Lorelei had known her mentor for the better part of twelve years. Once, she thought she knew Ziegler’s mind as well as she knew her own. Clearly, she hadn’t been thinking enough like her when she’d first stumbled into this room, blind with grief and exhaustion. If she hadn’t wanted anyone to find something she’d hidden, where would she have put it?

She opened a drawer and ran her gloved fingers along the inside, searching for a false bottom. Nothing. Clicking her tongue, she continued rummaging through the desk. She removed the drawers one by one and turned them over. She shone candlelight into the empty sockets that remained, searching for some sign of a trick door, a hidden compartment. It took only minutes to dissect it completely.

Next, she took to pulling books off the shelves and shaking them out. Her efforts produced little but a shower of pressed flowers and clouds of dust that made her eyes water. Leafing through the pages revealed nothing but a robust collection of texts on the cosmos and botany. By the time she was through with the room, she’d pried every stuffed and mounted beast from the wall, and the closet looked as though it had vomited its contents onto the ornate rug.