Page 116 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

It was far easier to be annoyed at what she had helped set in motion. Sometimes, the weight of responsibility sat on Lorelei so heavily, she couldn’t sleep. But for now, the Yevanverte was safe;shewas safe. She clung to that cold comfort on her worst nights. Her ghosts, at least, did not follow her as relentlessly as they once did. And when they did, they were gentler. Aaron’s laughter echoing down the alleys outside her father’s home. Ziegler’s brassy voice carried on the breeze outside the lecture hall. Sometimes, Lorelei thought she saw Adelheid’s broad silhouette in an east-facing window that overlooked the river. Although she could not see her eyes, she could feel her gaze. It was melancholy, almost wistful. She had taken to avoiding that part of campus on the occasion she found herself there.

Instead, she dreamed of silver eyes in the shadows, the heat of Sylvia’s mouth on hers. It was a torture far worse than any she’d ever conjured for herself: four months without her. Four months without hearing her sing or listening to her prattle on about something or another. Four months without seeing her smile, as bright as sunlight. Lorelei didn’t know how she could ever forget her, when everything reminded her of Sylvia.

It was a typical summer afternoon, sticky and languid with heat. Lorelei was, as she always was these days, sorting through the paperwork. Ziegler, it turned out, not only resented her role as chamberlain but was quite bad at it, too. There were thousands uponthousandsof letters addressed to Ziegler, most of them fawning and simpering. There were hundreds more documents that needed her review that she clearly had not bothered with. Although the entire world knew of her death by now, Lorelei took a perverse joy in replying to the most obsequious of Ziegler’s fans to “inform” them of her passing. Ziegler had betrayed her, but Lorelei still loved her best. The rest of these sycophants should know it. Once she’d finished, she began screening the correspondence that passed through her office.

There were, after all, rats to catch.

Sorting the mail was a full-time job all its own. This morning, she’d arrived to a new towering stack. It had slumped over in defeat the moment she closed the door behind her. Lorelei had kicked the bulk ofit, scattering it farther across the room, which did make her feelbetter—atleast until she had to gather up the wreckage and organize it again. After a few hours, she plucked an audaciously purple envelope off the floor.

There was a sprig of lavender tied to it with twine. For a moment, Lorelei considered the distinct possibility that it was some sort of assassinationattempt—orelse a cruel joke. It looked like the kind of letter one would send their lover.

Over the past few months, Lorelei had grown accustomed to the language of courtiers. According to some, lavender meantdevotion—butalso silence. She wondered which the writer had intended. Lorelei turned it over. She nearly dropped it when she saw the handwriting: unmistakably Sylvia’s. Of course she would send documents regarding matters of state that looked likethis.

But upon closer inspection, Lorelei saw it was addressed to her.

Her hands seized up. The court doctor had done the best he could for her injury, but it was still finicky. There was nothing to be done for her when theweather—orhermood—turned.She spent a few moments working out the knot in her palm, the nerves firing as if in anticipation of some blow. She wanted to tear the letter to bits and cast it into the wind. She wanted to copy down the address and write a scathing reply. But what was there to say?

Everything. Nothing.

She could not open it. Sylvia had not written in all this time, and she dreaded to think of what had taken so long. Perhaps her feelings had changed. Perhaps she was too busy enjoying her divinity. Or . . .

The thorns around her heart had withered sometime in those bright days she thought Sylvia was really hers. They’d been replaced now by a horrid, intractable weed.Hope. She couldn’t cut it down, no matter how desperately she tried.

Lorelei loved her even now.

She had her own signet ring, her own office, her ownlife. So much had changed and yet so little. She was still bitterly unhappy. Lorelei shoved the envelope back in the pile and resumed her work.

***

On a balmy evening, Lorelei returned to her favorite spot by the river. The Vereist chugged lazily past her, solid black against the sunset. In the gloaming, the world was washed in shades of emerald and gold. Fireflies drifted over the fields racing toward the horizon, reminding her of the irrlicht glowing like lanterns in the woods of the Vanishing Isle.

“They told me I might find you here.”

Lorelei choked on a breath.

Sylvia von Wolff was standing behind her. Her hair danced in the wind rising off the river. The fading sun haloed her in soft, golden light. Shewas—

Loreleifelt—

She’d no words at all. Lorelei rose to her feet. She took a step closer to her, casting her in shadow. Sylvia cranked her neck to meet her gaze, her eyes wide and waiting. She looked exactly as Loreleiremembered—andnothing at all like she remembered. She scoured Sylvia’s face for signs of new battle scars but found none. It was only the bone-deep weariness in her face that was new. Even so, hope shone out of her like a beacon.

The branches of the weeping willow clattered and hushed softly in the breeze. It smelled of things beginning to die: a warm, amber smell. They had last stood here a lifetime ago, with the spring mists coiled around them and the expedition hovering over them like a blade. If Lorelei closed her eyes, she could almost imagine the pallid face of a nixie rising out of the water.

“How blessed I am,” Lorelei said. “To what do I owe the immense honor of being visited by a saint?”

Sylvia winced. “I did not realize that would reach you here.”

“Oh yes. Word of our savior certainly reached me.” Lorelei knew she was being unpleasant, but she could not help herself. Hearing Sylvia’s voice again lit a spark within her. She felt, for the first time in months,light and incandescentand—andutterlyfurious. “Ruhigburg is not that much of a backwater.”

“It is good to see you so unchanged.” Somehow, she managed to sound both cross and fond. “How is your family?”

“How is my family? That is all you have to say to me?”

Sylvia winced again.

“They’re well, thank you,” she spat. “Now, good day to you, YourGrace—orshould I say Your Holiness? I know you’re very busy. I’ve seen your calendar,and—”

“Lorelei,” she said urgently. “I’m sorry.”