Page 12 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

Instead, she said, “Why, nothing at all,” and contented herself with Sylvia’s visible disappointment.

***

When they arrived at the harbor, the riverboat loomed above them: a three-tiered monstrosity carving a black silhouette into the mist seething at the waterline. The vessel’s name was painted on a placard above the paddle wheel in decisive crimson lines:Prinzessin. Beneath it was the motto of Ruhigburg University:amoenitate veritas. In beauty, truth. It took every ounce of Lorelei’s strength not to roll her eyes.

Moments after they boarded, a footman materialized to take Lorelei’s trunk from Sylvia. Sailors bustled around them, loading the last of their supplies into the boat. It boggled the mind, just how muchstuffthey had. There were barometers and thermometers, microscopes and telescopes, sextants and compasses, vials for seeds and soil, all of them tucked into velvet-lined boxes. Someone’s poor footman was struggling with a stack of them. They teetered dangerously in his arms. A scroll of paper fell off the top and went sprawling across the docks, unraveling like the long train of a wedding gown.

“Be careful,” Lorelei snapped. “Those instruments are worth more than your life.”

It was hardly an exaggeration. If any of them broke, they couldn’t afford to fix them, with the expedition’s limited funding. The footman gave her an anguished look. “Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!”

“You cannot hope to win respect through fear,” Sylvia chided. “A goodleader—”

“Surely you have something more important to do than follow me around.”

“Why, yes,” Sylvia said, as if it had just dawned on her. “I should finish setting up the wards.”

And with that, Lorelei was blissfully alone.

Ash curled from smokestacks as if from the mouth of a pipe, twinkling orange against the dark stretch of sky. The cinders rained softly onto the deck and tangled in Lorelei’s curls like snowfall. It made her feel ill at ease, inhaling the smell of burning wood mixing with the damp, silty smell of the river. Most smaller ships these days were propelled bymagic—andfor good reason. Steam engines were the most efficient and least expensive form of travel, but their boilers often burst from the pressure. She didn’t care to think of how many ships lay sleeping beneath the void-like depths of the river. Their budget, however, hadn’t allowed for a crew large enough to propel the ship with magic, and Ziegler did not have the patience to accommodate rest stops.

“Lorelei!”

Lorelei glanced up to see Ludwig, the expedition’s botanist, waving ather—andleaning out over the railing of the promenade deck two stories above her. Her stomach bottomed out at the sight of him.

“Be careful, you dolt,” she called. “I’ll be right there.”

By the time she reached him, he’d perched himself more comfortably on the railing. He flashed her a sly smile. “Hello, Captain.”

Lorelei grimaced. “Hello.”

Ludwig von Meyer was the only one of the Ruhigburg Five who treated her cordially. After he’d returned from his most recent expedition, he talked to her persistently enough that she’d been forced to concede they were friends. They’d spent hours holed up in the warren of offices in the natural sciences department, turning their haphazard notes into something resemblingmanuscripts—and,of course, trading gossip. The amount of knowledge he’d compiled on both aetheric plants and who was courting whom on campus frightened her.

He was a delicate sprite of a man with foxlike features, a placid smile permanently affixed to his face, and brown hair she’d once heard a moony classmate describe asartfully tousled. Today, he wore a green cravat and a silk waistcoat hand-painted with a pink-and-yellow water lily motif. Rings glittered on all his fingers, and a fat sapphire dangled from one earlobe. Even on an expedition, it seemed, he could not abandon his pretensions.

“Well?” he asked. “Are you excited?”

“Areyou?”

“Of course I am.” Mischief glittered in his eyes. “I get to spend time with my dearest, oldest friends. What more could I want in this life?”

She scoffed. “A great deal, I imagine. Surely you willmiss...whatis his name again? Hans? Or have your irreconcilable differences reared their heads once again?”

“Oh, come now,” he chided. He’d conspicuously ignored her barb. “They’re not so bad once they warm up to you. Half the stories about them aren’t even true.”

Lorelei bristled. He meant well, she knew, but she resented the reminder that she was and always would be an outsider. “And how long did it take for them to warm up to you?”

Ludwig, after all, hadn’t a drop of noble blood in his veins. His father had earned a small fortune as a merchant, and with it, he purchased himself a title and made generous donations to Friedrich’s war efforts. His loyalty had landed him a place incourt—andhis son a friendship with the crown prince. Still, Lorelei couldn’t imagine they’d ever treated him as an equal.

If she’d offended him, it didn’t show. His placid smile remained fixed in place. “Some advice, Lorelei? Keep them wrong-footed enough to forget why they hated you in the first place. You might try being nice for a change.”

“Thank you for your wise counsel,” she said witheringly.

“Anytime,” he said breezily. “Why not practice now? We’re going to be stuck on a boat together for God knows how long, and you know I don’t like to get in the middle of things, but you and Sylvia . . .”

“Oh, spare me. Does meddling ever get exhausting?”

“Never,” he said. “You know, I hear she likes the tall and gloomy type.”