Page 86 of A Dark and Drowning Tide

He rose from his seat, nothing but a looming shadow in the dark.

Her mind whirred with terror. Even if she escaped him now, she wouldn’t make it long. Adelheid would believe whatever he told her. Heike already thought her guilty. AndSylvia...Shecouldn’t stand against the three of them alone. But Johann was right about her. Lorelei had been fighting for too long to roll over and die now. She’d spent too long running from Death.

She felt for the flask around her belt and unstoppered it. Calling on her magic, she threw her arm out in a wide arc. Water burst forth, following the path her hand carved through the air. Cold unfurled within her as she froze it solid and sent two thin daggers of ice hurtling toward him. One smashed against the wall with a brittle sound like shattered glass. The second notched itself into Johann’sshoulder—farfrom any vital point. He let out a startled shout of pain.

For a moment, Johann seemed stunned. He touched the wound and stared at his fingers, slicked red with blood. Then, his eyes locked on hers. A terrible, ravening hunger lit them from within: pure bloodlust.

It said,You’re dead.

Lorelei slipped through the door and ran blindly. Her heart thundered in her chest, and her frantic breaths sounded far too loud in her own ears. She felt like that terrified girl again, sprinting through the alleywaywith blood caked on her boots. She could hear the sound of bone splitting. She could hear jeering laughter and shattering glass.

It took only a few moments for Johann’s footsteps to echo behind her. Lorelei dared to glance back. Aether shivered over her skin as the fog gathered over the river poured in through the windows and slipped beneath every door. With a sinuous curl of his fingers, it swirled around him like a wraith summoned to attend him.

Lorelei threw open the doors to the war room and stumbled inside. She shoved a chair beneath the doorknob and all but collapsed to the ground. Her vision pulsed black with terror both urgent and half-remembered. Still, the fog slipped in and bloomed through the room. The air sighed ominously, beading against her face like sweat. It slid an insubstantial finger down her back.

“There’s no point in hiding,” he called. “No one is coming to save you.”

And now she’d trapped herself inhere—inthe very same room where Ziegler had died. The doorknob twisted threateningly. When it did not give, he threw his weight against the door.

“Think, goddamn you,” she muttered. “Get ahold of yourself.”

There had to be sometrick—something,anything, she could do. With trembling hands, she pulled the moisture from the air. If she could get just one good shot . . .

The barricade groaned, then gave way. Lorelei scrabbled backward as the doors flew open. All she could see was his golden hair, loose and wild around hisshoulders—andthe fog unfurling around him like Death’s cloak. It all happened too quickly. Before she could think to move, water crashed toward her in a torrent.

She went sprawling across the ground, the wind knocked out of her on impact. Through the rheum over her vision, she could see the glint ofice—andthe cold shine of his eyes as he loomed over her.

“Don’t struggle.”

A spear of ice burrowed itself into each of her palms. She strangled a scream as he pressed the heel of his boot into one of the shards. Her vision went momentarily black, her lungs seizing with agony.

When she came to, she hardly recognized him. She had seen him miserable and brooding; she had seen him dark and threatening. But this was something else entirely. His eyes were bright, the pupils blown so wide they nearly consumed his entire iris, and his face was split in a wild grin that chilled her. He looked practically giddy.

Although adrenaline had blunted the worst of the pain, the animal part of her wanted to thrash free. “Before you kill me, tell me why. Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?”

He seemed surprised. “I didn’t.”

Shock had dazed her. She must have misheard him. “What?”

Johann crouched beside her. As he leaned over her, the ends of his hair brushed her cheeks. “I didn’t lie to you. I do believe in Wilhelm. But if I must choose between them, I’ll choose her every time.”

Of course. If he hadn’t killed Ziegler, then he was protecting whoever did.

“You...Youidiot!”

What else could she say? She had thought all of them besides the murderer would be allied on this one point: to expose who had done it. But she had failed to take into account all the ways people were flawed.

Johann straightened again, gazing down at her as though she were an insect he could crush underfoot. He raised his hand, and the water obeyed, coiling like a serpent ready to strike. “Spitting venom until your last. I almost admire you.”

“Johann!”

Like a puppet with its strings cut, the water dropped.

A pale gray smudge appeared in the threshold of the war room. Through the lattice of curls plastered to her face, Lorelei saw Ziegler’s murderer standing there with a cold gleam in her eyes.

Adelheid.

Twenty-One