Page 90 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“You will face the executioner’s block one way or another. At least go with the last scrap of your honor intact. No one else needs to die on this expedition.”

For a moment, Sylvia stared at her in astonishment. And then she lunged, so quickly that Lorelei flinched. She hated herself for it. Johann grabbed Sylvia’s elbow, halting her before she could close the gap between them.

“You can’t do this.” Her voice was thick with desperation.

“On this ship, I can do whatever I want.”

Sylvia’s breath shuddered out of her. Her eyes were livid, burning as bright and wild as an open flame. Sparking within them was something Lorelei realized then that she had never seen before, not even when they first met five years ago. It felt as though she’d been struck across the face with the shock of it. She had been a fool if she thought for even one moment she knew what hatred looked like on Sylvia von Wolff’s face before now.

“One day,” Sylvia said, “you will grow tired of this thing you’ve made yourself into. One day, all there will be to content you is ghosts.”

Good. It made it easier if Sylvia despised her. If she wished this pain on Lorelei, then Lorelei could endure it for her. “Put von Wolff in her room. I don’t want to look at her anymore.”

Adelheid nodded at Heike. “Come with me.”

Together, they led Sylvia out of the war room. Johann lingered by the door, watching Lorelei like she might fly across the room and bite his throat out. It was admittedly a tempting prospect. But with everyone out of the room, without adrenaline pumping through her, she suddenly felt very drunk and very miserable. She rested her forehead on the desk.

“How are your hands?” he asked.

“Oh, fuck you.”

When she turned onto her cheek, she saw him smirking down at her. He lifted his medical kit like a white flag between them. “Let me clean your wounds. It’s the least I can do.”

Lorelei said nothing, only peeled off her gloves with her teeth. Theagony of leather pulling against her broken skin whited out her vision. When she blinked the world back into focus, bile rose in her throat. Her palms were such a mess, her mind refused to process it.

“Careful,” he said, clearly irritated. “You’ll hit your head if you faint.”

She hadn’t realized she’d nearly pitched forward. “Right.”

While her pulse thrummed sickeningly in her fingertips, Johann procured a rag doused in antiseptic. “This will hurt.”

He sounded far too pleased about it. “No more than it hurt last night,” she said.

With a shrug, Johann dabbed at the wound. He hadn’t lied. It stung far worse than she’d anticipated. Every tendon screamed in pain as he manipulated herfingers—atleast, what she could feel of them between the troubling spots of numbness.

In the daylight, his features were almost completely transformed. The sun smoothed away all his harsh lines with a gilded brush. His brows were furrowed in a preoccupied little frown as he worked to pack her wound. The pressure of bandages winding around her hands made her head swim. Spots danced across her field of vision.

“Are you afraid of blood?” he asked with a touch of amusement in his voice. “How curious.”

“As I’ve said, I’ve conducted no blood sacrifices,” she muttered. “You’re pleasant today. Calmer, at the very least.”

When he met her eyes, they were haunted. “Then you understand why I must protect her.”

“Because you’re a lovesick dolt who’s never had an idea of his own.”

He tied off the dressing with more force than she thought strictly necessary. “Because when I’m with her, I can almost believe that I really am human.”

Lorelei curled her lip in disgust. “Youarejust a man. That’s what makes you so despicable.”

“And you’re just a woman. If there’s any justice in the world, you and I will one day get what we deserve.” Johann’s lips twitched in a thin smile. “How fortunate for us there isn’t.”

As soon as he left the room, Lorelei flung open the doors to the balcony and promptly emptied the contents of her stomach off the side of the boat. As she draped herself over the railing like a sheet left out to dry, she gazed miserably down at her own pallid reflection. Two faces wavered on the surface beside hers.

Ziegler. Aaron.

Each of them had one hand on her shoulder.

All there will be to content you is ghosts.