Page 9 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“She is adept in the sciences,” Ziegler continued, “respected as a scholar, and she demonstrates an excellence of character and constitution, and a generosity of spirit and mind, that are requisite for this project. It is my great pleasure to introduce her to all of you.”

Sylvia seemed light as air, ready to take flight.

“Lorelei Kaskel,” Ziegler said, “will you please join me and say a few words?”

“What?” she and Sylvia said in unison.

It carried over the fragile hush in the room. Every eye was on her. Murmurs rippled through the crowd, but from somewhere outside herself, all she could hear was the same accusation echoing through her skull again and again.

Yevanisch viper.

Yevanisch thief.

Three

DARKNESS SETTLED HEAVY BETWEENthe walls of the Yevanverte.

Lorelei sat on the roof of her parents’ house, nursing a cup of coffee. Sleep eluded her so often, it had become something of a habit at this point: to keep watch as the moon poured its light over the single narrow street she called home. The coffee had dulled the sharpest edges of herheadache—althoughit had done nothing at all for her fraying nerves. In no more than an hour, she would board a ship and leave this city for the first time in her life.

She had wanted this. That was the worst part about it. She had wanted this so desperately, yet she couldn’t find a shred of happiness.

Yevanisch viper.

She’d never regretted her reputation before. It made her life easier to encourage what they said about her. No one bothered her when they knew how sharp her tongue was. Few were openly hostile to her when there wererumors—false,regrettably—ofhow she had the power to tear a man’s blood from his veins. For so long, she’d believed her thorns would protect her. That if she spoke their language and rose in their ranks, she would be safe, maybe even accepted. How naïve she’d been.

Yevanisch thief.

With shaking hands, she took a gulp of coffee. It sat like venom on her tongue. Before she could think better of it, she dashed her mug onthe ground. It rang out, brittle and harsh against her nerves. Somewhere down the street, a dog howled. Lorelei squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a breath. She neededto...Well,first she needed to clean up this mess and dispose of the evidence. After that, she needed to compose herself. Someone would be arriving at any moment to escort her to the harbor.

And yet, she could not let it go.

Why had Ziegler done this to her? Her dreams realized suddenly felt like a terrible curse, indeed. She’d transcribed enough folktales to know that happy endings were for girls like Sylvia. Ones in pretty stories about peasant girls who kiss frog-princes, whose tree-mothers give them slippers embroidered with moonlight, who defeat their most wicked tormentors with wit and sweetness and grace. Then, there were stories for girls like Lorelei. The worst of them went like this.

Back in the days when wishes still held power, there was a boy, the most loyal and clever of his master’s servants, who met an elf in the woods. In exchange for the three ducats the boy had saved, the elf gave him a fiddle that compelled anyone who heard it to dance, a blowpipe that never missed its mark, and the power to be granted any favor he asked. Later that day, the servant stumbled upon a Yeva admiring a bird perched above a bramble thicket, its feathers as vibrant as flame, as brilliant as diamond.

If only I had a voice so beautiful, the Yeva sighed.If only I had a coat so fine.

If that’s truly all you want, said the servant,why don’t you go and get it?

He shot the bird with his blowpipe. Just as the Yeva crawled into the brambles to fetch her prize, the servant said,You have bled people dry long enough. Now the thicket shall do the same to you.

He began to play his fiddle. Ensorcelled by its magic, the Yeva danced among the thorns until her blood painted the thicket red, until she offered her entire purse of gold in exchange for mercy. But as soon as the servant took her money and freed her from the enchantment, she coldly plotted her vengeance. She went to the nearest town and prostrated herself before the judge.

Oh, anguish!she cried.I have been attacked. My skin is cut to ribbons, my clothes are in tatters, and what precious little I own has been stolen from me.

When the judge had the servant brought before him, the servant protested that the Yeva gave him her gold of her own free will.

You must think me daft, replied the judge.No Yeva would ever do such a thing.

As the servant was led to the executioner’s block, he asked for his dying wish to be granted: to play his fiddle one more time. Despite the Yeva’s protests, the judge, compelled by the elf’s magic, granted him his last request. As the clever servant struck up a tune, the entire town began to tremble like water in a struck glass. As the servant’s song soared higher, they danced, whirling and leaping like marionettes, until they were breathless, until the judge offered the servant his life in exchange for mercy. The servant accepted thebargain—onthe condition that the Yeva tell the judge where she got her purse of gold.

I stole it, the Yeva said,while you have honestly earned it.

And with that, she was hanged as a thief.

Lorelei almost admired the cruel, stark justice of those fairy-tale worlds. There was good, and there was evil. Those who were rewarded and those who were punished. But she would never be the pitiable girl in the blood-red cape or the golden-haired orphan who charms a prince with her fragile beauty. She would always be the goblin forcing maidens to spin straw into gold. She would always be the Yeva in thorns.

The moment she let down her guard, everything she’d fought for would be taken from her. This place had made Lorelei into a viper, and if she should go down, she would go down hissing like one. Until that day when they inevitably turned on her, she would guard what was hers, no matter who she had to bring down with her.