Page 27 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

The most sensible place to begin her investigation was with the weakestlink—orat least the one most willing to talk.

Lorelei knocked on the door to the left of her own: Ludwig’s. When he answered, the first thing she noticed was his rumpled hair. The next: that he hadn’t finished doing up the intricate gold-wire buttons of his shirt. Clearly, he’d just woken up. It took all her strength to suppress the eldest-sister instinct to fuss at him for his dishabille. Honestly. It was the perfectly civilized hour of seven o’clock.

Ludwig looked up at her with something like pity. It made her skin crawl.

Before he offered anything as unwanted ascondolences, she said, “I have a question for you.”

“Down to business,” he said. “No good mornings. I like it.”

She gave him an exasperated look but entered when he moved aside for her. As she brushed past him, the faint scent of pressed flowers washed over her.

Absently, she catalogued the room. Botanists did not require much equipment to do their work. His lacquered-ironvasculum—decoratedby a landscape painter whose name she could notrecall—wasslung over the back of his desk chair. Equally useful for storing plant specimens and warning off wildeleute in the field, she noted. A lens with a carved mahogany handle rested atop a pile of books, alongside a veritable dragon hoard of scattered rings.

Lorelei had always suspected he felt the need to armor himself with wealth. It frustrated her endlessly. He hardly needed to prove himself to his insipid friends and their peers when his academic achievements spoke for themselves. Since he graduated two years ago, he’d identified over two hundred new species of plants, many of them with magical properties. She expected there were at least ten named after him at this point.

She made to sit on his desk chair, but he intercepted her rather urgently. “No, no. Take the bed. It’s far more comfortable.”

Skeptically, she perched on the edge of his bed. The springs groaned in the silence.

Ludwig put on his rings, then shuffled a haphazard pile of papers into a semblance of order. “Why do I feel like I’m in trouble?”

Lorelei hooked her ankle over her knee. “Why does Heike dislike von Wolff?”

He paused for a moment, then opened his desk drawer and tucked the papers inside. At last, he turned to her with an amused but wary smile. “You want gossip about myfriends—beforeI’ve had coffee, no less? What do you take me for?”

“You don’t want me to answer that,” she replied wryly. “Just tell me what I want to know.”

Over the months they’d known each other, she’d come to associate him with the folktale “The Wolf and the Fox.” It was short but brutal,with a simple message: if you couldn’t be the strongest creature in the woods, you could be the slyest. If you were agreeable enough, you could call in favors like debts. You could persuade people into revealing their weaknesses and make them feel like they’d given you a gift. That was what made Ludwig dangerous. He had a face that begged to be trusted and a smile as sharp as a knife in the back.

“You’re a very intense person, you know.” The drawer clicked shut. “I really shouldn’t say anything.”

His tone indicated he fully intended to say something. By way of prompting him, she said, “Of course not.”

“But when we were about fifteen, Heike’s mother proposed a marriage suit to Sylvia’s mother.”

Of all the things she’d expected him to tell her, it was notthat. “What?”

“I know.” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “Sylvia refused her, naturally. I still remember the letter she wrote me about it. It was like reading a novel.Oh, injustice! My cruel mother means to sell me like a prize cow at market, but I refuse to let her use me any longer. I am writing to petition you for shelter, Ludwig, for I know you are the only one on this earth who will understand. I am running away this very evening!”

It had the air of a well-loved joke: just rehearsed enough. How many times had he read thatletter—andhow many times had the others giggled over it?

“How very reassuring to know von Wolff hasn’t changed at all in ten years.” Lorelei scoffed. “Heike holds a grudge against her, I take it.”

“She does.” Ludwig slumped into his desk chair. “Although Sylvia has tried many times to make things right between them.”

Lorelei frowned. “Surely, it’s no great loss to Heike. They would make a terrible match.”

“It was the principle of the thing. Heike . . .” He hesitated, as though he’d reached the limit of what he could share. “She has always wanted to leavehome—bywhatever means possible. Sylvia knew that. We all did.”

Of course Heike held a grudge. Sylvia had thwartedher—twice.

“She set her sights on Wilhelm after that,” Ludwig continued, “but he only has eyes for Adelheid. And surely, you’venoticed—”

“Her and Adelheid.” Surely, everyone had noticed the lingering looks and the way they invented excuses to touch each other. It was exhausting to watch. “Yes.”

He snapped, then pointed at her as if to sayexactly. “Needless to say, it’s made things complicated. And so, all of us will be subjected to their pining forevermore. Not that you would know anything about pining.”

Lorelei glowered. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”