Page 16 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

Lorelei had spent months agonizing over how to present the definitive version. Which details to cut, which textures to flatten, what moral to emphasize. In the end, she’d decided on this:

Back in the days when wishes still held power, there lived a king whose realm had fallen on hard times. But no matter how poor the harvest or how hostile his enemies, he had one boon: all the waters in his land contained a strange and powerful magic. Of all those waters, the king’s greatest treasure was a pool that answered one question of each person who asked. It did not speak, but like a dark mirror, images swam on its surface. He built a chamber around it in his castle, with a skylight that let in the moon’s silver rays.

It so happened that one day, the king asked the pool where he might find power enough to save his people from those who sought to destroy them. In reply, an image took shape in the water. It showed him a spring he had never seen before, hidden in the swamplands from which mankind had first emerged. To the one it deemed worthy, it granted incredible power. But those who had been found wanting could take its power byforce—ata cost.

The king ventured forth and, of course, faced three tedious challenges along the way to prove his mettle. At the end of his journey, he found a vast lake that looked to be made of starlight. But when he approached it, it did not awaken. He had been found wanting.

Enraged, the king dove in, and when he emerged again, he knew he possessed all that he wanted. He could sweep whole villages off the coastline. He could flood his enemies’ farmlands. He could rain hail the size of fists on their armies. But he soon learned that stolen power came at too high a price. Every time he wielded it, it drained his life force a little more.

Before he drew his last breath, he sealed away the knowledge of both the pool and the spring. No one, he vowed, would suffer or cause suffering as he had ever again.

Some versions suggested he died by slow and painful exsanguination. Evidently, a village a few days’ ride from Ruhigburg had kept his blood in a reliquary. She knew this only because she overheard Heike complaining that Wilhelm had brought it back to the palace and insisted on carrying it around. The man had either a morbid sense of humor or a flair for the dramatic.

A knock sounded on her door. Lorelei slammed her notebook shut with a flash of irritation. “Enter.”

As the door swung open, the string of warding bells Sylvia had installed jangled merrily. The sound grated against her, but she supposed it beat an untimely death at the hands of the wildeleute.

She was surprised to see Ziegler standing in the threshold. In the morning light, she looked soft and unruffled, with a fur-lined coat drawn tightly around her shoulders. Herhair—hadthere always been so much gray creeping intoit?—tangledgently in the breeze coming through the open window. It wasn’t until now that Lorelei fully appreciated what the years in Ruhigburg had done to Ziegler. Before they began preparing for the expedition, she’d moved through the world like a lion in a cage. But now she was aglow. She looked almost like the woman Lorelei had met for the first time twelve years ago: a swashbuckler in her mid-thirties, hot off the runaway success of her first publication.

Ziegler’s ready smile faltered. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Lorelei said automatically. At the skeptical look on Ziegler’s face, she added, “Nothing important.”

Ziegler settled on the edge of Lorelei’s bed. “Tell me.”

“I have been thinking since our meeting.” Under the probing intensity of Ziegler’s stare, it suddenly felt difficult to speak. How ridiculous. She cleared her throat and pressed onward. “I am curious how, specifically, you arrived at your conclusion.”

Ziegler’s expression grew remote. “You doubt me as well.”

Lorelei’s gaze darted to the open window as she half willed the river to rise up and pull her under. Oblivion seemed preferable to this, but it was not in her nature to turn back once she’d set down a path. When the silence stretched on too long to bear, she said, “It’s not the conclusion I would have drawn, based on my own findings.”

“Do you trust me?”

Of course she did. For better or for worse, Ziegler had made her who she was.

Sometime after her thirtieth reread ofTales, Lorelei had, against her parents’ counsel, written a letter to Ziegler. The memory embarrassed her too much to examine closely. It had been all frills and wide-eyed praise. But to her astonishment, Ziegler had replied. More astonishing yet, she had promised to come visit her in the Yevanverte. Only, the girl Ziegler finally met wasn’t the same one who had written her the letter.

In truth, Lorelei couldn’t remember much from that time in her life. The days after Ziegler’s letter arrived had been a giddy blur. And then, a week later, Aaron died.

When Ziegler herself arrived, in the height of Lorelei’s grief-fueled stupor, she’d been both nothing like and exactly as Lorelei had envisioned. She was stocky and fast-talking, generous in spirit and mind. But she was also refreshingly brusque and ungentle. She’d grilled Lorelei on what she’d observed of nature in the Yevanverte. She’d asked her which languages she’d studied and what folktales she knew. She’d evendemanded—despiteLorelei’s parents’ insistence that she could not move even a droplet ofwater—ademonstration of her magical ability. Ziegler had sat silently through it all, taking notes with an alarming speed and volume.

And then she’d left.

Two days later, another letter arrived, inviting Lorelei to be tutored in the natural sciences. Lorelei could still recite the entire thing word for word, but she’d clung to two lines so fervently, they were all but branded on her heart.It seems to me you’ve far too much potential to waste it making shoes and moping. How would you like to be extraordinary?

Lorelei had clung to that promise ever since. Herpatience—herdevotion, hertrust—hadbeen rewarded. Ziegler had earned it a thousand times over. But her evasiveness set Lorelei on edge. It was entirely unlike her, and it ill-suited her.

“With all due respect,” Lorelei replied, colder than she’d intended, “I don’t see how trust factors into it.”

Ziegler paused, then sat up straighter. “You’re right, of course. The data pointto—”

“A very significant concentration of aether,” Lorelei said. The more she spoke, the more her certainty grew. “But there are, of course, a great many scattered across Brunnestaad. Relying on only one source is irresponsible.It’s—”

“You’ve done well.”

Why, then, did it feel like a dismissal? Lorelei hesitated. “I have always hoped to be of use to you.”

“And you have been. My brilliant Lorelei.” Ziegler crossed the room and rested her hands on Lorelei’s shoulders. When, Lorelei wondered absently, had she grown so much taller than Ziegler? She’d once loomed as large as a giant. “You’re tired. You’ve been too close to your work these last few months.”