Page 17 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

It took a moment for Lorelei to register her meaning. “You think I’m mistaken.”

“I think,” she said before Lorelei could interject, her voice more forceful than it had been, “you have misinterpreted your data. However, I still made good use of your journals, if not your theory. Rest assured, I’m very certain about our destination.”

The finality of those words brooked no further discussion. Lorelei could say nothing but “Yes. Of course.”

Ziegler patted her shoulders, visibly relieved. It had been a long while since she’d extended any gesture of maternal fondness. It made Lorelei’s stomach twist violentlywith—what,exactly, longing? She felt vaguely disgusted with herself. Somehow, all she could think of was the barely leashed fire in Sylvia’s voice.You slink and scrape for him like a beaten hound, just as you do for Ziegler.

“I’ll give you a moment,” Ziegler said. “Come find me when you’re ready to discuss logistics.”

When the door latched shut behind her, Lorelei flung open her journal again. She did not know what she was looking for. Her own handwriting seemed an entirely foreign language to her. She slammed it shut and reached for the cold comfort of anger. She had been given one task. One simple task. How could she havemisinterpreted—

Clarity doused her like a bucket of cold water. Folklore was not a science that depended on calculations, and Lorelei did not make careless mistakes. Neither did Ziegler. Her conclusion was sound, surely; she just had not seen fit to explain how she’d arrived at it.

And so, she’d lied.

Surprise came first, then an aching sort of confusion that settled heavy as a stone in Lorelei’s breast. It felt the same way it had when her father had struck her. Absently, she touched the phantom bruise on her cheek with gloved fingertips.

How strange, she thought. Ziegler had never lied to her before.

***

Lorelei slept fitfully. In her dreams, a sound pursued her, soft and eerie, as elusive as wind through winter-bare trees. With every step, it shivered and chimed, drawing closer and closeruntil—

She shot upright. The sedative she’d taken made molasses of her thoughts, and she could not be certain what was real or not. Then that incessant twinkling sound came again.The warding bells, she realized.

Someone was outside her room.

Throwing off the covers, she fumbled to turn on the gas lantern resting on her bedside table. The flame flickered to life, but the darkness was a thick veil she could not push through. The whole room swayed and shifted, and the floorboards had a sickly gleam, like fevered sweat. Outside her window, there was nothing but the jagged dark of the water, restlessly churning. The window bloomed with condensation at her touch, the glass streaked with rainwater. The sun still had not risen.

Who would be awake at this hour, to have roused her?

Plenty of people, you paranoid fool.

Prinzessinhad a staff of roughly fifteen charged with stoking the boiler, steering the ship, and otherwise ensuring they didn’t starve. All of them worked early mornings, some all through the night. If not them, perhaps one of the expedition crew had risen early and nudged the string of bells as they passed. Whatever she’d heard wasn’t a wildeleute; the iron chain around her neck was cool and inert against her skin.

It could not hurt to check. If nothing else, perhaps venting her spleen on someone would make her feel better. Lorelei retrieved her gloves from the nightstand’s drawer and pulled them on, then grabbed the coat slung over the back of her desk chair. Lantern in hand, she stepped into the hallway.

The darkness yawned open. She swore she heard the faint echoes of laughter, the shattering of glass. Her breath quickened.

Damn you, get ahold of yourself.

Even after twelve years, the one weakness she’d not beaten out of herself was this childish fear of the dark. As it always did, her mind spun shadows into monsters who wore the faces of men. Blood running slick on the floor. The specter of Aaron with bone gleaming through his matted hair. Lorelei dug the heel of her palm into one eye, trying to blink away the memories overlaid on the world.

None of this was real. The dead were dead.

Prinzessinrocked against her anchor. The water churned softly. Lorelei made her way down the hall by the lantern’s glow. As she passed a window, the moon punched through the fog. Its light hemorrhaged onto the floorand sloshed against the toes of her boots. Her heart thudded louder in her ears.

The doors to the war room listed open. Lamplight fell like a blade through the threshold. Some small, fanciful part of her remembered wandering the halls of Ziegler’s home as a girl. Sometimes, she stayed overnight when their lessons went long, and when the nightmares frightened her awake, she found Ziegler in her office. She’d drone on about whatever she was working on that day until Lorelei dozed off in an armchair.

Quietly, Lorelei called out to her, “Ziegler.”

No response.

Lorelei moved farther down the hall and stopped just outside the door. More tentatively, she said, “Ziegler?”

Still, nothing.

Maybe she’d gone back to bed without extinguishing the lights, or perhaps she had fallen asleep, her manuscript as her pillow. She could be so absent-minded when she was immersed in a project. Lorelei pushed open the door. It groaned on its hinges.