Page 94 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

It looked like it cost her something when she nodded her assent. Lorelei raised the waterskin to her lips. She drank as if Lorelei would snatch it away from her at any moment. When she drew back, struggling to catch a breath, a rivulet of water ran down the line of her jaw.

Lorelei wanted to dab it away with her handkerchief. She wanted to tend to her wounds, to work the knots from her hair and braid it as she once had on that Albisch mountaintop. She wanted to kiss her again, tenderly first, then with all the hunger she had not yet burned out of herself. She wanted and wanted and wanted, so much and so deeply she feared her greed was boundless when it came to Sylvia von Wolff. And yet, she had ensured she would never have her again. Sometimes, she despised herself. Most of the time, really.

“You could lead everyone astray,” Lorelei said. “It would be simple.”

“To what end? I meant what I said earlier. If I die, all of you will die with me. That isn’t what I want.”

“They would deserve it.”Especially me. She hesitated. “I’m sorry. If I’d seen any other option at the time . . .”

“It is late for that.” Sylvia let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “But here I am, ready to forgive you. What a fool I am.”

It felt like a benediction, one wholly undeserved.

“Let me earn it.” The words spilled from her without thinking. “This isn’t over yet.”

“How can you say that?” Sylvia asked brokenly. “It’s hopeless. If you truly mean that you had no choice, then you and I are prisoners. Even if we survive this, Wilhelm will punish me for Ziegler’smurder—andAlbe for what my mother has done. There’s nothing I can do to stop any of it.”

If there was anything to be said of Sylvia von Wolff, it was that she was unfailingly, infuriatingly optimistic. Lorelei hardly recognized her now. She looked utterly defeated, battered and curled in on herself. Of all things, it made Lorelei furious. “You disgust me.”

Sylvia’s eyes turned flinty. “I? Disgustyou?”

Yes, fight me, she thought.Fight back.

“You are Sylvia von Wolff,” she hissed. “That name means something, or have you forgotten? Do you really intend to lie here and die like a beaten cur?”

“And what would you have me do? You have taken every option from me.” She turned away sharply. “Go away, Lorelei. I want to rest.”

Lorelei obeyed, fuming. As much as she craved the oblivion of sleep, it would not come easy with her blood pounding like this. She stalked to the river. Once she finished refilling her canteen and splashing her face with water, she peered down at her wavering reflection. She looked gaunt and exhausted, but for the first time in weeks, she felt truly alive.

Her mind had begun to work again.

As a Yeva, two principles had been instilled in her since birth. On one hand, survival. On the other, justice. When she’d been backed into a corner, they’d seemed irreconcilable. At the time, casting her lot with Adelheid had seemed the prudentdecision—theonlydecision. But she had no guarantees in these nobles’ games, no leverage, and even if Adelheid kept her word, the power she held over Lorelei would be a poison slowly killing her for the rest of her life. To know her freedom and her mind were not her own was the most agonizing sort of death she could imagine.

She had been enduring it for years already.

The night was staggeringly clear. The water reflected the stars overhead. They unfurled across the surface like glimmering skeins of fabric. Beneath the captured image of the sky, she saw something oddly familiar.

Half-buried beneath smooth river stones was one of Johann’s iron coins. Before she could think better of it, she pulled off her glove and plunged her hand into the water. The cold was an agonizing sort of bliss, like pressing ice to a burn. Her fingers clumsily scraped the silt, kicking up clouds of mud in the water. It was a struggle to close her fingers around the coin, and she felt a pathetic sort of triumph when she finally managed to take hold of it. She held it aloft, dripping and gilded in celestial light.

A sleek gray head emerged from the water.

Lorelei’s breath stuttered with surprise. The nixie watched her with barely restrainedhostility—butwhen it noticed the coin in her hand, its black eyes softened with reluctant curiosity. Its lips parted to reveal a startling row of serrated teeth.

It would be so very easy for this beast to drown her now. But it remained entirely still, as if waiting to see what Lorelei would do next. She held the nixie’s gaze steadily as she tucked the coin into her pocket. The nixie looked almost approving.

No, she thought.Grateful.

It slipped beneath the surface and disappeared.

This certainly wasn’t over yet. A plan took shape foggily. Sylvia was right. The two of them were effectively prisoners, and as Johann had soundly proven, they were outclassed. Alone, they had no chance at escaping. But there were still allies to be made.

If she had to drag Sylvia kicking and screaming out of despair, she would. She would not allow her to surrender.

Twenty-Three

BY MID-MORNING THE NEXTday, it had grown hot enough that everyone shed their coats. The clouds swelled and blackened until they broke in an ill-tempered fit. The skies drenched them with rain, and all the world was glazed with damp. Magic hummed in the air, and the iron chain around Lorelei’s neck burned as the distant song of a nixie rose above the hiss of the storm.

“I hate this,” Heike said. “This is byfarthe worst trip we’ve ever taken.”