Page 45 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

“I’m so glad to hear it. But surely,” Ludwig pressed, “you could give us a bit more. Her Highness won’t ever forget that sort of kindness.”

They left the shop weighed down with food, boots, snowshoes, winter coats, and assorted charms and talismans. In the end, he’d even managed to extract a tray of pastries, balls of deep-fried dough. Some had beendusted in sugar, others glazed with chocolate and marzipan. It seemed to Lorelei a pointless extravagance, but well, that was Ludwig.

Unfortunately, he’d also purchased a pint of milk and a dozen eggs, most likely because he knew it would irritate her. The eggs were disturbingly translucent, frigid to the touch, and contained a glittering black liquid that reminded Lorelei of the Vereist’s waters. Even Sylvia was forced to concede they did not look particularly appetizingorsalubrious. The milk did not seem terribly out of the ordinary, but Lorelei made a mental note to pour it out before Sylvia could get her hands on it. That no-refund policy existed for a reason.

Once they dropped off their supplies at the inn, Ludwig said, “Why don’t we take these pastries and go on a little excursion? I’d like to find that storm-summoning plant she mentioned.”

They climbed the switchbacking roads just outside the inn, and when they reached the end of the trail, they slipped through pasture fences. Red-coated cattle lifted their immense heads to watch them pass, silver bells jingling from the ribbons around their necks. Soon, the fields yielded to fragrant pine. Bars of sunlight dappled their path, and overhead, branches framed jagged swatches of sky. Even this late in the morning, frost glittered on the stiff grass.

Ludwig walked with his eyes focused on the ground, the long train of his cloak sweeping the earth behind him. His silence struck Lorelei as unusual. It was almost as though he forgot he was among company, for he looked uncharacteristically pensive.

“Is theresomething—”

He held out an arm in front of her, halting them. “Watch your step. Irrwurzel.”

He pointed it out to her: a plant with delicate feathered fronds. To her untrained eye, it looked like a common fern. However, she recognized the name from Ludwig’s publications. Stepping on it would lead you astray of your path; you’d be cursed to wander aimlessly until the following dawn.

Sylvia peered down at it. “Have you figured out how to collect a sample yet?”

“God, no. I haven’t dared try again.” He flashed Lorelei a mottled scar on his hand. “Keeping it on you attracts vipers. Who would have thought?”

Sylvia made a sympathetic noise, but she was smiling as if lost in reverie. “It is rather funny in retrospect, isn’t it?”

“Funny? I almost died!”

“I did not realize the two of you went on expeditions together,” Lorelei said.

“It was nothing so formal. Many years ago, we spent long afternoons roaming the grounds of his country home together.” Sylvia stepped around the irrwurzel and onto a fallen log. She walked across it with her arms extended for balance. “Ludwig inspired me to pursue my work.”

“Now, I wouldn’t go that far. If anything, you had the greater influence.” He reached out and took her hand, helping her down from her perch. “You infected me with your recklessness.”

They hiked and hiked, and with every passing minute, Lorelei’s mood darkened. Cold air flowed down the slopes and pooled in the basins. There was nothing but trees here. Spruce trees and beech trees and fir trees, covered with thick coats of moss. It was unendingly green, so perfectly picturesque as to be mundane. What were they doing here? She’d come no closer to untangling anything, and without their equipment, they had no hopeof—

“I think this is the glade the shopkeeper mentioned,” Ludwig said.

The interminable trees had thinned out to a clearing carpeted with crocuses. At the far end stood the corpse of what had once been a stately maple. Its trunk was split in twain and blistered with char, and what remained of its branches were skeletal and blackened, clawing at the surrounding greenery. Clearly, it had been felled by lightning. Lorelei liked its stark beauty far more than what had come before.

As Ludwig forged ahead, Sylvia settled herself in a sunny patch of grass. The thin light played in the waves of her hair and illuminated the broad planes of her face. Even the scar on her cheek gleamed like ice. It was unfair, Lorelei thought miserably, that someone could be so effortlessly beautiful.

“You are still in a fine mood, I see.”

Lorelei nearly let out an undignified sound of surprise. Sylvia had bitten into one of her pastries, and powdered sugar smudged the tip of her nose. Lorelei focused, perhaps too intently, on the one imperfection she could find in her. After a moment, Sylvia self-consciously ran her thumb along the corner of her mouth, brushing away an invisible crumb. That did not help matters.

“I am still in mourning,” Lorelei said, “about our equipment.”

“We don’t need equipment to find the Ursprung.”

Lorelei did not even want to touch that statement. Instead, she said, “We will need it to collect data. Withoutit—”

“Data cannot give you a complete understanding of something.” Sylvia’s expression was unreadable, but Lorelei did not like it. It veered too close to pity. “Where is your sense of wonder? Sometimes I think you would sooner let a cyanometer tell you what color the sky is, rather than simply looking up.”

Lorelei opened her mouth to protest but promptly shut it again. Sylvia’s words oddly stung. Perhaps as a child, she had believed Ziegler’s lies: that the world outside the walls of the Yevanverte was full of magic. But she had seen the truth of it time and time again. It was a brutish and violentplace—onethat had rejected her. If she were to become a naturalist at the end of this, she could do her work with the cold certainty of rationality. There was no need for things likeimmersionandwonderto factor into it.

“Well,” Lorelei said. “It would certainly give me a more precise shade.”

Sylvia laughed, a warm, startled sound that Lorelei felt like a caress against her face. Before she could muster up some snappish retort, Ludwig gave a shout of triumph. He stood on the opposite side of the field, grinning like a fool and holding a fistful of golden flowers aloft.

In an instant, the skies darkened to a surly gray.Dread—morepotent than she’d ever feltit—spreadthrough her entire body. All the hair on her arms stood on end, and her fingers tingled with a frenetic energy. Sylvia’s hair reached skyward and billowed as though she wereunderwater. She stared back at Lorelei with a look on her face that suggested they’d arrived at the same conclusion.