Chapter Twenty-Three

Twenty-Three

By mid-morning the next day, it had grown hot enough that everyone shed their coats. The clouds swelled and blackened until they broke in an ill-tempered fit. The skies drenched them with rain, and all the world was glazed with damp. Magic hummed in the air, and the iron chain around Lorelei’s neck burned as the distant song of a nixie rose above the hiss of the storm.

“I hate this,” Heike said. “This is by far the worst trip we’ve ever taken.”

She trudged glumly in the back of the group. Her hair was slicked against her face, and her fine boots now seemed to be made more of mud than leather. She radiated a powerful misery that was trying the very last of Lorelei’s delicate patience.

“Surely there is some data you can collect,” Adelheid said flatly. “Make yourself useful instead of complaining.”

“On second thought, walking through this wasteland is great .” As if on cue, the top of Heike’s backpack snagged on a low-hanging branch. She wrenched herself violently free with a snap of wood. “What is wrong with him?”

Out in front of them, Johann marched like a man pursued. Sylvia stumbled to keep pace with him as he tugged on her tether.

“I can’t imagine,” Lorelei said dryly.

“Nothing, I am certain.” Adelheid shot Lorelei a reproachful look. Her next step landed her in a puddle that soaked her to the knee. Adelheid gave an undignified full-body shudder. She yanked her boot out of the mud with an obscene squelch.

Heike snorted.

With an exasperated sigh, Adelheid said, “Right. Tread carefully, then.”

They followed the river until they reached a waterfall. It tumbled off the lip of a limestone cliff in a perfect white curtain and emptied into a vast pool. Johann stopped dead in his tracks when it came fully into view. Sylvia collided with his back, letting out an indignant oof! It took no more than a moment for Lorelei to realize why.

Rocks jutted from the water in an eerie, circular formation. The sun had broken through the cloud cover and glimmered on the pool’s surface like a golden ring. A horde of nixies had installed themselves on the stones, sunbathing and humming and braiding their hair. There were more than she’d ever seen congregated in one place, likely driven upriver by the iron poisoning their water. The chain around her neck burned in warning.

“Brilliant,” Heike said sharply. “A great plan, Johann—and flawlessly executed. Now what do we do?”

The nixies turned and regarded them. It was difficult to attribute any human traits to them, but they looked quite displeased to see them. Their gills flared, as did the gauzy fins that fringed the bottoms of their tails. There was nowhere to go, unless they backtracked through the woods.

Adelheid turned to Sylvia. “What would you advise?”

Sylvia, no matter how embittered, apparently could not help offering her knowledge when asked. “Ah, well…Last night, I said the nixies didn’t look particularly aggressive. However, these ones are presenting much differently.”

“Is that right?” Heike asked impatiently. “How would you characterize these ones?”

“Hostile!” Sylvia rounded on her. “If you had listened to me in the first place, we would not be in this predicament at all.”

“Then fix it,” Heike hissed.

Adelheid interjected with a genteel cough. “Perhaps it would be wise to turn around.”

“No,” said Lorelei. “Why don’t you sing to them, von Wolff?”

Johann looked nauseated at the very suggestion. Sylvia regarded her suspiciously.

“She can speak to them,” Lorelei continued. “I have seen it firsthand.”

She did not know the extent of Sylvia’s… fluency, if it could be called such, in the nixie tongue. But if she could somehow convince them to distract the others or compel them into stillness, perhaps the two of them could escape.

Lorelei stared at Sylvia with an expression she hoped said, Go with it .

Sylvia stared back blankly. Disappointment dropped into Lorelei’s gut like a stone. Sylvia hadn’t understood—or perhaps she truly had resigned herself to her fate. Then, a smile broke across her face. Glimmering bright in her eyes was something painfully, beautifully familiar: hope.

So she hadn’t lost herself yet.

“That,” Sylvia said, “is an excellent idea.”

“This ought to be good,” Heike muttered.

Unease splintered Adelheid’s cool mask, but she did not object. The five of them made their way down to the pool. While Sylvia approached the edge of the water, the rest of them huddled a safe distance away. Her wrists were still bound behind her. Lorelei tried not to look too closely at the bruises spreading beneath her pale skin, or the way her fingers swelled from the pressure.

Agreeing to this plan was either staggeringly brave or staggeringly stupid—maybe both. One misstep, and she would be gone, dragged to a watery grave or torn to ribbons. But for perhaps the first time in Lorelei’s life, worry seemed a faraway thing. How could she possibly doubt Sylvia? She had watched her defy death time and time again. While Sylvia did not channel aether, she possessed another, more potent sort of magic. Every wildeleute they encountered fell hopelessly under her enchantment. For the longest time, Lorelei could not figure out how she’d managed it. But now, she understood.

Sylvia had opened herself up to wonder.

She loved them.

The nixies bared their pointed teeth at her. Most of them stayed on the rocks, lashing their tails. The boldest of them dove into the water and beached themselves on the shore. Their scales rasped against the rock and scintillated in the sunlight. They propped themselves up on their elbows, their hair pooling in slick knots around them and their gray skin streaked with silt. Sylvia walked into the water until it swallowed her up to her knees.

Then, she began to sing.

She had a horrible voice, truthfully, but she was always one hundred percent committed. Lorelei couldn’t find it in herself to be anything but awed.

The nixies, too, watched her raptly. One by one, they joined in chorus with her. A flock of crows overhead took off squawking. Magic prickled along Lorelei’s skin like electricity. All her wards vibrated at the onslaught of ensorcellment. The iron chain around her neck nearly scalded her. The sound was dreadful, scraping agonizingly against her skull. And yet, there was something compelling about it. The song swilled through her blood like wine.

Sylvia stood with her face tipped toward the sun. One of the nixies curled its fingers around her calf, almost worshipfully. Lorelei couldn’t be certain whether she wanted to beat it away from Sylvia or join it at her feet.

“It’s beautiful,” said Johann.

Startled, Lorelei turned toward him. He had spoken with true feeling in his voice, but his eyes were glassy. When he staggered forward, Adelheid was startled from her stupor. She blinked hard, then grabbed hold of his arm, half to stop him, half to steady herself. “Johann.”

He wrenched his arm from her grasp. “I have to go.”

“ Johann. ” She took his elbow.

This time, he leveled her with a glare Lorelei never expected he’d turn on Adelheid. Without warning, he knocked her aside—hard enough to send her sprawling across the ground. She sat up after a moment, lips parted in mute shock and clutching the side of her face. Lorelei could see a bruise forming beneath her fingertips. Her yellow hair had come loose from its coronet and hung in front of her eyes.

Heike knelt beside her with a vacant, dreamy smile. “What are you doing, Addie? Don’t you hear it? We have to go.”

“No. No. We are staying right here.” Adelheid wound her arms around Heike’s shoulders and shot Lorelei a panicked look. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Their wards,” Lorelei gritted out. “They’ve been tossing them into the river.”

Understanding lit Adelheid’s eyes. With slow-dawning horror, she turned her attention to Johann.

“Watch her.” She fumbled to free one of the chains around her neck, then looped it around Heike’s. “I need to go after him.”

“Are you mad?” Lorelei snapped. “Look what he did to you! Those things will kill you if you get much closer.”

Adelheid swore. “Johann!”

Johann had already dropped to his knees beside the pool. One of the nixies wound its arm around his neck, another sliding a webbed hand up the inside of his thigh. He bowed closer to them, pliant and eagerly wide-eyed. One of them dragged her palm across his face, leaving a glistening streak from his jaw to his lips. It angled his face toward its own and kissed him. When they broke apart, their mouths were painted red with his blood. It flowed steadily from a bite wound in his lower lip.

The sight of it snapped Lorelei fully from her trance. Her stomach bottomed out as she scrambled to fish the iron coin from her pocket. She squeezed it as best she could, as if that alone could dispel the nixie’s enchantment. At the moment, the ragged moan the nixies had drawn from Johann’s throat was proving a far more powerful ward.

Disgusting. She had to get to Sylvia before this turned for the worse or she witnessed something she could never unsee. “Sylvia—”

The second nixie pushed itself out of the water, seizing Johann by his cravat. Before Lorelei could even blink, it pulled. Johann went under, smiling deliriously all the while. The water churned and bubbled frantically.

Adelheid screamed, the sound buried somewhere in the chaos.

That snapped the other two out of it. Heike groaned, clutching her head. Sylvia stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet. She fell into the shallows with a splash.

Blood bloomed from the depths of the pool. There was so much of it, and all Lorelei could see was red, red, red gushing into the grooves of the cobblestoned street. She heard jeering laughter echoing down the alleyways. The nixies shrieked, circling like a pack of sharks. Lorelei’s head swam with terror. It was like she had tumbled into those black waters and there was no air, no light. Floating somewhere above herself, Lorelei registered that Adelheid was dragging herself toward the water.

“Adelheid!” Heike grabbed her around the waist. Her voice was raw. “Stop it! There’s nothing you can do for him now!”

Adelheid’s attention snapped to Sylvia. Tears streaked her face like war paint. “You will pay for this.”

The nixies screamed again.

“We’re leaving,” Heike snapped. “Now.”

Reluctantly, Adelheid allowed herself to be dragged into the woods. She and Heike vanished into the underbrush with a rustle of leaves.

“Lorelei!” Sylvia called as she struggled with her bonds. “A little help would be appreciated!”

She crashed back into herself with a gasp. “Can’t you make them stop?”

“I’m afraid not!”

Lorelei’s hands were trembling violently. She was drenched in cold sweat. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t go near the water without completely losing her senses, but she couldn’t let Sylvia die.

Johann had left his backpack abandoned on the ground. Her hands were utterly useless , numb with terror and nerve damage both. With a shout of frustration, she struck them against the earth. Pain shot through her so ruthlessly, her vision whited out.

Still functioning, then.

She fumbled to open the pack, then found a scalpel tucked into his medical kit. She hesitated only a moment before taking Sylvia’s confiscated saber as well.

A nixie surged from the depths of the pool, reaching for Sylvia. Lorelei threw an arm out, tugging on the water with all her willpower. She had not accounted for how easy it would be to manipulate water this aether-dense. It leapt to her call like a well-trained hound. A wave burst from the surface, knocking the nixie back from Sylvia with far more force than Lorelei intended. When it resurfaced, it snarled with thwarted rage.

“Incredible,” she murmured.

But she didn’t have any more time to waste. Lorelei hurried to Sylvia’s side and grabbed her elbow. Although it was excruciating to hold the scalpel, she sawed through Sylvia’s restraints as quickly as she could. The rope came undone with a snap and fell to the ground in a heap. She yanked Sylvia to her feet.

“Come on,” Lorelei shouted over the scream of the nixies.

Hand in hand, they ran.

They didn’t make it far before Sylvia stumbled on an upturned root. A strangled sound escaped her, and on instinct, Lorelei reached out to catch her. By some miracle, she managed to steady them both. Even through her gloves and layers of linen, the heat of Sylvia’s body was searing.

“Be careful,” she murmured, if only to fill the fragile silence between them. Her breath stirred the wispy curls around her temples.

For a moment, Sylvia stared dazedly up at her. And then she blinked, and her anger was like a dam breaking. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

Once again, Lorelei was confronted with how deeply and utterly she had ruined things between them. Now, she knew, was the time for groveling penitence and heedless self-immolation. And yet, old habits were far harder to quash than she’d ever imagined. Try as she might, she could not take the high road. She could not be wrong with anything resembling grace. Her temper spiked hopelessly, and she dumped Sylvia unceremoniously on the ground. “I suppose I should have left you to die, then!”

Sylvia recovered instantly. Before Lorelei could take a step back, she had sprung to her feet and drawn her saber. The point quivered a bare inch from Lorelei’s nose, winking in the dull sunlight. “Maybe you should have. I should kill you for what you’ve done.”

They made a sorry pair. Both of them were breathing heavily, drenched in blood-soaked water. Sylvia’s hands were as wrecked as Lorelei’s now. Every finger was swollen and mottled blue from the pressure of her restraints, and the wound the alp had given her was weeping again. Her arm trembled with the effort of holding up her blade.

“Do it,” Lorelei said.

Sylvia hesitated. The look in her eyes was something like regret—like pity . “It’s dishonorable to strike an unarmed opponent.”

“Fuck you. Fuck honor. Look around you! There is no honor in this world.”

“ Excuse me? How dare you speak to me so crassly?”

“I am not unarmed,” Lorelei snarled. With a flick of her hand, water burst from her waterskin—easier to command here than it had ever been before. It spiraled around her menacingly. Never before had she felt as powerful or as wretched. “Once a viper, always a viper. Isn’t that right? So kill me. You would be a fool not to. This is how it was always going to end between us.”

Sylvia’s expression was unreadable. “No.”

“Then strike me, at least!”

Punish me. Lorelei couldn’t do it herself, not in a way that mattered.

At Sylvia’s silence, Lorelei seethed. She wouldn’t even do her the honor of a dueling scar. Maybe that was the greatest punishment of all: that after all this, Sylvia found ways to remind her of her station, of all the things she could never have because of it. “Even now, you’d spite me?”

Sylvia’s face crumpled. And then she started crying.

“I…ah…” All of Lorelei’s anger extinguished in an instant, replaced instead with an obliterating panic. “What is this? What are you doing?”

“I can’t bear it.” Sylvia dropped her saber and slumped to the ground again. Burying her face in her hands, she groaned. “I killed Johann.”

As though she were approaching a wounded animal, Lorelei knelt beside her. This time, Sylvia didn’t pull away. As carefully as she could, Lorelei cradled her face. Deep down, she knew she should not be touching her this way after what she had done. Beneath the mud and exhaustion, Sylvia was pristine. All her scars shone in the light. When Sylvia leaned into her touch, Lorelei indulged the desire to trace the one gashed into her cheek.

“Stop that,” she said stiffly. “Look at me.”

Sylvia lifted her gaze. Her snowy eyelashes were matted with tears. Lorelei had not been made for comfort, but for Sylvia, she would have to try. “You didn’t kill him. The nixies did. Had it been you who fell, he would not be grieving you. You’re too softhearted, Sylvia. Save your tears for someone who deserves them.”

Sylvia sniffled and hastily smeared away her tears. “Yes…. Yes, you’re right. I suppose the boy I grew up with died a long time ago. I just…I had wished things could be different.”

“You did what you had to,” Lorelei said. “And you’ve done a far greater good. Without him, we might actually stand a chance.”

Sylvia frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Johann didn’t kill Ziegler. Adelheid did.”

“Adelheid?” Sylvia echoed. “No…. That can’t be right.”

“It is.” Lorelei had always known Adelheid possessed an ironclad determination. Now she knew that she was just as ruthless. She explained everything that had happened after she’d asked Sylvia to distract Heike, as well as Adelheid’s plan to assassinate Wilhelm and her offer to protect the Yevani in Ebul.

“I thought I was choosing the lesser evil. But I was wrong. I was afraid. I have been afraid all my life, and I fear I always will be.” She was babbling like a complete and utter ninny now, but she found she couldn’t stop. “I’m as wretched and cowardly a creature as you’ve always suspected. I am surly and selfish and cruel. But I should have been better than my nature. I should never have betrayed you.”

I should have chosen you.

“Saints, Lorelei,” Sylvia snapped, and it felt like an absolution. “You are human . Do you understand what’s happened here? You’ve acted the part of a villain so well, you’ve gone and convinced yourself it’s who you truly are. You are honestly one of the least self-aware people I have ever met!”

“I am perfectly self-aware! You are brighter than the sun itself. And me…”

“Enough.” Her voice wobbled. “You’ve made mistakes, as have we all. But don’t you see yourself? You are witty and observant. You are fiercely protective of those you care for—and hopelessly loyal, in your way. I don’t believe you’ve ever once acted completely in your own interest, for better or for worse. I have always admired that about you.”

Lorelei did not know what to say. She suddenly felt quite flushed.

“I forgive you.” Sylvia smiled beatifically. It felt like sunlight. “Now, then. If I hug you, will I get to keep all my extremities?”

“We shall see.”

Sylvia did not need any further encouragement. She crushed Lorelei into a hug. For a moment, Lorelei thought she would be smothered. But once she relaxed into it, it was surprisingly…nice, with the damp linen of her shirt and the thrum of her heart against her cheek. Sylvia’s fingers twined gently into her hair, holding her steady against her. The simple tenderness of it almost brought tears to her eyes, but she would sooner die than cry in front of Sylvia von Wolff. Old habits died hard, after all.

Lorelei drew back and met Sylvia’s gaze. Someday, she would find a way to express all the things she wanted to say. “Thank you.”

“Of course. I—”

“We can bring her down together.”

Sylvia blinked as though she’d been struck upside the head. “I-indeed? Ah. Yes, of course. Adelheid! Single-minded as always.”

“Focus, von Wolff.”

Sylvia’s expression soured further. But Lorelei was filled with renewed determination—and eager to dance quickly away from the topic of feelings . Instead, she imagined the look on Adelheid’s face when Johann had slipped beneath the river: the look of a woman who had only one thing left to lose.

“Johann was willing to defend Adelheid to the end,” Lorelei said. “But now the playing field is level. Heike is no fighter, and Adelheid will be reckless from grief. If we find the Ursprung first, we can decide what to do with it ourselves.”

“And when we return to Ruhigburg? Wilhelm will never see sense when it comes to Adelheid.”

“He will have to. Not even he is romantic enough to throw everything he’s worked for away for something as ridiculous as love.”

“It’s not ridiculous!”

Just then, sunlight lanced through the dense canopy. It illuminated the earnest, impassioned indignation burning in Sylvia’s wintry eyes. It painted her in soft pastels and danced in her wild hair. She was a work of art. She always had been.

“We shall have to agree to disagree,” Lorelei rasped.

Anything else would betray her.

Sylvia’s scar dimpled as though she were trying to conceal her smile. “Fine, fine. I suppose we should get moving.”

“Oh?” Lorelei raised her eyebrows. “You know where it is, then?”

“Not really,” Sylvia said brightly. “But the wildeleute have never steered me wrong before.”

Lorelei looked at her incredulously. “And that went so well before.”

“Well, we are alive, are we not? I would say that’s a small victory.”

“Hardly. But I suppose we have to take them where we can.” Lorelei sighed. “Lead the way, then.”