Page 4 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

Sylvia jabbed a finger at Lorelei’s face. How absurd, that someone a full head shorter than Lorelei was attempting to menace her. “I was perfectly in control of the situation. You’ve made me look like a fool.”

“You do a good enough job of that on your own.” Lorelei pulled her watch from her breast pocket. “We need to hurry if . . .”

The second handtick, tick, ticked feebly in place, broken. The minute hand had met its untimely demise, fixed eternally at five minutes past their scheduled departure time.

They were going to be late, and Ziegler was going to murder them.

Two

WHEN THEY FINALLY ARRIVEDat the meeting point, there was nothing left to say. Lorelei had wrung every ounce of vitriol she could from the Brunnisch language and then some in Yevanisch. Sylvia had endured it all with a spitefully martyred expression and now kept her sullen silence.

Ziegler leaned against the carriage, radiating palpable malcontent. As they approached, she fixed them with a flat, unimpressed stare.

“Get in,” Ziegler said, and climbed into the carriage.

Obediently, they followed her. Lorelei took the seat opposite Ziegler. Sylvia, infuriatingly, settled in beside Lorelei and adjusted the sodden train of her gown. Lorelei clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

The river had washed the starch out of her shirt, and somehow, that enraged her as much as their tardiness. She could not afford vanity, but this was a matter ofrespectability—oforder. She had fastidiously knotted her cravat, and her collar points had once cut a strong, sharp line across her jaw. Both, now, were limp and sad. Worse still was the awful sensation of wet fabric against her skin. Sylvia,meanwhile...Evenhalf-drowned in a mud-stained gown, she managed to look fairy-tale beautiful, as perfect as a princess in a glass coffin. When Lorelei looked at her, she felt sick with an emotion she preferred not to name.

Long ago, a seed of bitterness had taken root within Lorelei. Over the years, it had grown wild and sprouted thorns that coiled around herheart. She didn’t envy Sylvia, exactly; she had never wanted to be beautiful. Still, it sometimes stung that she couldn’t even claim to be conventionallyhandsome—orat least classically Brunnisch, with fair hair and pale blue eyes. She’d cut her dark curls short, save for an unruly spill over her forehead, the style fashionable with most gentlemen. But with her sharp cheekbones and aquiline nose, she looked severe and dour rather than rakish, an effect that wasn’t softened when she spoke.

At last, as the carriage began to move, Ziegler opened fire. “Do you care to explain why you’re late?”

Oh, would she ever. Lorelei sat up straighter.“I—”

“Or why you look like drowned rats?”

Sylvia wilted.“Well—”

“Or why you’ve chosen to spite me on today of all days?” With every question, her voice grew more strident, her words quicker.

“If you’djust—”

“What part of ‘all of our careers depend on the expedition’s success’was difficult for you to understand?” It took a moment for Lorelei to process she’d begun speaking in Javenish. Ziegler had spent most of her adult life in Javenor before the previous king summoned her home some fifteen years ago. She’d returned bitterly, but in manyways—heraffected Javenish accent, her disdain for all thingsBrunnisch—sheacted as though she’d never left. “Do I need to put it more plainly?”

When neither of them answered, she said, “Well?”

“No?” Sylvia tried.

“No? Then why are you trying to sabotage it? Showing up thislate—andwith you two in such astate—isa complete and utter embarrassment!”

“He and I are old friends,” Sylvia said miserably. “He has seen far worse, I assure you.”

“And I’ve been advising politicians longer than you’ve been alive,” Ziegler countered. “This event is meant to communicate stability. Unity.Confidence. How do you think it will look when his most credible political rival strolls in as though it’s a joke to her?”

“I am not interested in being his puppet!”

“Too bad. Tonight, we all are.” Ziegler slouched deeper into her seat and crossed her arms. She looked somewhere between defeated and disgusted, with her steely glare fixed out the window. “I don’t care how long you’ve known the man or how good-natured he is. None of that means a thing if he feels the stability of his reign is in jeopardy.”

It was a fair point. No man secure in his reign would waste resources seeking the Ursprung. Few people believed it existed outside the realm of fairy tale.

Most people had some ability to wield magic. The most skilled practitioners could pull moisture from the air or freeze the surface of a pond with a wave of their hand. But theUrsprung—ifyou were willing to pay the price, ofcourse—grantedincredible power. The folktales Lorelei had compiled over the years could never seem to agree on how exactly it worked or what horrible fate awaited whoever sought its power.

“Fifteen years,” Ziegler said with palpable resentment. “Fifteenyearsthe royal family has kept me in the palace on a gilded chain. Finding this damn spring is the very last service I owe him.”

Once, Ziegler had undertaken years-long expeditions and spent her off-time in a well-appointed flat in the most fashionable city in Javenor. Now she served as Wilhelm’s chamberlain, a role she resented but could not escape. He called her his walking encyclopedia.

More like his dancing monkey, Ziegler often groused.