Page 15 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

The easternmost province of Ebul, which was often relegated to an afterthought on most maps, was rendered here in loving detail. She had carefully penciled in the fields of tulips it had once been known for, long before the Wars of Unification, and the fertile valleys and vineyards. All the lines were hazy and soft, more a memory of a place than a depiction of one. Last, spanning almost the entirety of the south, was Albe in bold, angry lines. Between mountain ranges and dark swatches of woods, castles jutted from the countryside like rib bones pushing up through carrion.

Thedetail—andthe feeling behind itall—astoundedLorelei. She was still admiring it when Ziegler jammed a pin directly into the map. It marked a spot somewhere in the frost-backed chain of mountains on the kingdom’s southern border.

“It’s in Albe,” Ziegler said.

Albe?Lorelei frowned, unable to keep the confusion off her face. Based on her own research, that was among the last places she would have placed it.

Heike and Adelheid exchanged a look across the table. Sylvia’s expression, meanwhile, was frozen in horror. She darted her gaze wildly about, as if searching for some salvation, some escape. “That can’t be right.”

“Agreed.” Johann’s voice was tight with barely restrained fury. “I refuse to believe the Ursprung is in somebackward—”

Sylvia rounded on him. “Bite your tongue!”

“Johann,” Adelheid said warningly.

“Oh, but it is,” Ziegler said, a little peevishly. “Lorelei had made her case quite clearly.”

Hercase? She had only been introducing Ziegler’s methodology, but both of them took the bait. Johann turned his glare on Lorelei. Sylvia had the nerve to look betrayed.

I didn’t know, you fool, she wanted to say.

Then she remembered she’d mocked Sylvia only hours before.Perhaps you’ll be heartened to know that the Ursprung isn’t in Sorvig. He may marry you yet.

“Upon reflection, I suppose it makes sense.” Sylvia laughed, an airy, forced sound if Lorelei had ever heard one. “The von Wolff line boasts some of the most talented magic users in the kingdom. The proximity to the Ursprung must explain it. Now, if you’ll excuse me for just a moment.”

With that, she fled the room. Lorelei wanted to find her dramatics ridiculous, but the wordsthat can’t be rightrang incessantly in her skull. Hadn’t Lorelei thought the same?

“How can you all sit idly by?” Johann slammed his palm flat on the table. “Yevani commanding thenobility—andsoon we’ll have an Albisch queen! What next? What will be left for us? Wilhelm is leading this kingdom into degeneracy.”

Heike looked positively delighted by his outburst. “Why don’t you write to him? Your frothing rants are alwayssocompelling.”

Johann rose unsteadily to his feet. As he stalked out of the war room, he muttered, “This is a farce.”

“And why,” Adelheid asked flatly, “did you think provoking him was wise?”

“Oh, relax,” Heike cooed. “It’s good for the two of them to be humbled every now and again. It builds resilience.”

Adelheid stared at her with exasperated disbelief. “Fine. I will deal with them myself.”

When she left, the doors slammed shut behind her. After a few moments of silence, Heike and Ludwig looked at each other, clearly doing their very best not to burst out laughing.

“Good girl?” Ziegler’s infernal bird chirped.

Lorelei placed her head on the table. No more than two hours in the field, and already she had completely lost control of the expedition.

Four

THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT.

Hours later, Sylvia’s plain shock still haunted Lorelei. Alone in her room, she turned over the image again and again: Sylvia’s slack expression, all the light and exuberance drained from her in aninstant—thenhow quickly she’d papered it over with an empty smile.

Lorelei could not decide if she envied Wilhelm for his ability to inspire such despair in her or if she resented Sylvia for turning her nose up at the prospect of marrying a king. By all accounts, her reaction defied all reason. If she became queen of Brunnestaad, she could advocate for whatever fanciful policies she wished. She could even ensure Lorelei’s ruin if she saw fit to deprive her of her place in court out of spite. But she did not seem to believe that the Ursprung was in Albe, and infuriatingly, Lorelei agreed with her.

It felt treasonous to even entertain it. This expedition was the culmination of decades of Ziegler’s work. And yet, Lorelei had spent the last hour filled with doubt and leafing through her own notes.

Ludwig had once called them “deranged,” but she took pride in the system she had developed. Order was essential in identifying patterns in a project of this scope. She’d loosely indexed the tales she’d collected by motif and basic plot structure. For each one, she included a transcription of her conversation with the storyteller, her notes on thetale (primarily composed of snippy commentary), and the final version, cobbled together from all her sources.

Over the past year, Ziegler had brought in people from all over the kingdom for Lorelei to interview. Eachprovince—eachvillage, noless—hadtheir own version of the Ursprung legend. The general sketch of the tale always followed the same beats, but they never agreed exactly on who the protagonist was, what trials he faced on his journey, what he lost by its bitter end, or even what power it granted. In a kingdom as large as Brunnestaad, variants were to be expected. But not one variant placed the Ursprung in the Albisch mountains.