Chapter Twenty-Four

Twenty-Four

By late afternoon, the rain had slowed. Fat pearls of water dangled from leaves and glittered on the fine threads of spiders’ webs. All around them echoed the silvery sound of dripping water. The humidity made a pall of the air, a smothering weight that settled heavily over the island.

What little of the sky she could see was the livid purple of a bruise. It reminded Lorelei of the summit of Himmelstechen. Wherever they were, it was no longer the Little Sea.

One problem at a time, she told herself.

As sly evening drew itself across the horizon like a blade across the island’s throat, an orb of light winked out of the darkness, then another. They hung suspended between the slender trees, bobbing tantalizingly as if borne on the current of a river. The longer she stared at them, the hotter the chain around her neck burned.

“I’ve found some wildeleute for you to chase.”

“Oh?” The excitement in Sylvia’s voice had no right being so endearing.

She stopped and squinted into the underbrush. A dozen ghostly lights pirouetted through the air, merrily circling around one another. Upon closer inspection, Lorelei could make out the faintest shape of a pixie-like figure within each golden aura: limbs, delicate and slender as twigs, and hair like tongues of fire.

“Oh, no,” Sylvia said dismissively. “Those are irrlicht. They will lead you astray for the fun of it.”

“Ah, of course. Unlike any of the others.”

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the drone of nixie-song.

“We’re getting closer,” Sylvia offered.

“Fantastic,” she said wanly.

The sound of nixies tormented her. Lorelei couldn’t banish the image of blood slicked on the surface of the water. She swore she saw Johann in the woods, the looming shape of him traced by the eerie glow of the irrlicht. Another one of the dead had joined her legion. He stood there with a trail of blood blooming from his throat like poppies and his lips bruised. His eyes held an accusation within them.

You killed me.

It was nothing he wouldn’t have done to them in turn. She wanted to tell him as much, but it wouldn’t do her much good—nor would it be terribly reassuring for Sylvia. If Lorelei were her, she wouldn’t want to throw in her lot with someone clearly teetering on the edge of sanity—or, at best, a magnet for wiederg?nger, creatures that wore the faces of the dead like masks.

“Lorelei?” Sylvia looked at her with singular concern. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” she said dismissively. Not a wiederg?nger, then. How disappointing. “I don’t do well with death.”

“You once told me it haunts you,” Sylvia said hesitantly. “What did you mean by that?”

She considered replying tartly, if only to retreat to the safety behind her wall of thorns. But the steadiness of Sylvia’s gaze and the compassion in her voice pinned Lorelei in place. Ugh. She had wanted to earn her forgiveness. She supposed letting her in—and giving her the truth—was a good enough place to start.

“I see ghosts sometimes,” she said begrudgingly.

“Truly?” Sylvia craned her neck to peer into the woods, as though she might catch a glimpse of them as well. “Is it Ziegler?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “There are others.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes. When we were children…” Lorelei had not told anyone this story in years, and she didn’t know if she could bear to meet Sylvia’s eyes when she did it. Her mind drifted just above her body, allowing the memory to pass without touching her. “I had convinced him to sneak away from the temple with me. I was playing at being a naturalist, when some men from Ruhigburg crossed the gate into the Yevanverte.”

There was more she could say here, she supposed. But the exact unfolding of events had always eluded her. How many of them were there, really? What did any of them look like? It was the littlest, most inconsequential details that haunted her.

“They murdered him. It was like a game to them.”

“That’s…that’s horrific.”

The pain in Sylvia’s eyes taunted her. When she knew the whole truth, she would not look at her with such aching tenderness. “He told me to run, and I did. I ran.”

“Of course you did—”

“You don’t understand. I left him to die. I abandoned him.” Her voice broke humiliatingly. “So you see, I have always been a coward. I would sacrifice anyone and anything to survive.”

Lorelei closed her eyes. She could not bear to see what she knew would be awaiting her. Reproach. Disgust. Blame. But when she dared look at Sylvia again, her eyes were agonizingly soft.

“What else could you have done?” Sylvia took her elbow in her hand, pulling her closer. “Lorelei, be rational in this, as you are in all other things. You were a child. They would have killed you, too. You’re very lucky they didn’t.”

“I’m not sure I was lucky.” The words caught in her throat.

“I didn’t think I was, either, in the beginning.” Sylvia smiled ruefully. “I did not know Aaron, but if that was his final act, he was incredibly brave and kind. He did not want justice from you, Lorelei. He wanted you to live.”

Over her shoulder, she could faintly make Aaron out. Her eternal shadow, her tormenter, her little lamb.

His face was still boyishly round, his frame still gawky. As she forced herself to hold his unblinking stare, she saw it was not as baleful as she always imagined. In fact, she could hardly discern any of his features at all. They were shrouded, as if he lay submerged beneath murky waters. The realization nearly knocked her breathless. He was slipping away from her.

Perhaps she was the one who hadn’t let him go.

“Live,” she repeated. “I’m not sure I know how anymore.”

“For now, just breathe.” Sylvia slid her palms up to cradle her jaw. “Focus on me. Stay with me.”

I have for years, she might have said. How could she not?

But what came out was a bare exhalation. “I’ll try.”

The deeper they pressed into the woods, the stranger it became. It felt as though there were a thousand eyes blinking out at them from the darkness. White mushrooms bloomed thick from fallen logs, their gills rippling as they passed. The spores were faintly bioluminescent, twinkling in the gathering dark like fireflies. Everything smelled green, like damp and decay.

Here in her element, Sylvia seemed lighter. She stopped every now and again, rapping lightly on tree trunks as if calling on a neighbor, or crouching to pour water over their roots. Waldschratten emerged in their ragged leaf-cloaks to speak with her in exchange for baubles and scraps of bread. It all felt patently ridiculous, but Lorelei had no choice but to put her faith in Sylvia. She claimed the wildeleute never steered her wrong.

Lorelei supposed Sylvia had never led her astray, either.

She forged ahead of Lorelei to gallantly hold back a branch strung with a tangle of vines. Lorelei had half a mind to scold her for her thoughtfulness, yet she couldn’t find it in herself to object. Her palms had spent the past few hours alternating between throbbing agony and blissful numbness. She brushed past Sylvia—only to almost topple headlong into what looked like an enormous hole in the ground.

She scrambled back a step. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Here we are,” Sylvia said with a smug little smile.

Lorelei couldn’t see what there was to be proud of. In truth, she did not know what she was looking at. As she leaned over the edge, she realized they were standing beside a karstic spring. The water was mirror-smooth, ringed in impossible shades of blue like a sliver of agate. No power radiated from it. The reflection of her own haggard face stared back at her in bewilderment.

“ This is the Ursprung?”

“What? No, of course not,” Sylvia protested. “This leads to a network of underwater caves. The waldschratten suggested the Ursprung would be somewhere beyond them.”

“Caves,” Lorelei repeated.

“Yes,” Sylvia said brightly. “Nixies tend to make their homes in places like these, so I’m inclined to believe them. We’ll have to dive.”

“Oh,” Lorelei said dryly. “Wonderful.”

As if on cue, a dark shape cut across the pool. A nixie.

Lorelei’s heart thrummed wildly against her rib cage. All she could see was potential tragedy crystallized over the world. All she could think of was Johann, dragged into churning red waters. Of Sylvia’s panicked face, the wild spill of her hair, as the alp dragged her under that alpine lake. She didn’t know if she could endure it again.

“Do you trust me?” Sylvia asked.

This time, her answer came without hesitation. “Of course I do.”

Sylvia smiled at her. “Then let’s go.”

“Is that all there is to your plan? Let’s go?”

Sylvia ignored her and lowered herself to the ground, letting her feet dangle into the water. Reluctantly, Lorelei joined her. The sweet smell of crushed grass wafted between them. Lorelei shrugged off her jacket and let it pool on the ground behind her. The light refracting off the surface danced across Sylvia’s face. Her eyes sparkled with mirth, and Lorelei was once again struck with wretched fondness . Everything delighted Sylvia. Even something that might kill them.

Nixie-song burbled up from below them, and magic sparked hot against her wards.

Lorelei did trust Sylvia. She had to.

As if sensing her hesitation, Sylvia rested her hand over Lorelei’s. The nixie cut through the water like a knife, then surfaced barely a foot in front of them. Sylvia’s fingers tightened against hers as she began to hum. It was a strange thing, to watch them communicate with their call and response. Everything in Lorelei recoiled when the nixie lifted a hand from the water. It placed something on the ground beside Sylvia and then, with an almost mischievous smile, dove once again. A single heart-shaped scale rested in the grass, shining like an opal in the sunlight.

“What is that for?” Lorelei asked impatiently. “What did it say?”

“She didn’t say anything.” Sylvia picked up the scale and turned it over in her fingers. “It’s a gift. I’m not sure what it’s for, exactly. But I think this means we should have safe passage.”

“ I think and should are not reassuring phrases.”

“You can’t plan for everything, try as you might.” Sylvia added, “Do you know how to free dive?”

“Why would I— No, of course not!”

“Ah…Well, then you’ll want to follow quickly.”

Before Lorelei could respond, Sylvia drew in a deep breath, then dove into the water. Lorelei’s heart reflexively leapt into her throat. Beneath her, Sylvia was a smear of white against the bottom of the spring. Dark silhouettes circled her. She looked terrifyingly small from above.

Lorelei had well and truly lost her mind to even consider following. And yet, somewhere deep down, she knew she’d never had a chance at remaining sensible when it came to Sylvia von Wolff. She’d already lost her heart. What was one more thing?

Lorelei let her inhale swell within her. Before she could talk herself out of it, she plunged into the water. She’d expected her breath to be snatched away by the cold, but it was strangely warm beneath the surface—and impossibly dark. Only a single column of golden light filtered down from above, slicing clean through the murk. Lorelei’s hair unfurled around her and reached toward the sun.

As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw they were surrounded by nixies. They lounged in the jaws of rock formations. They swam farther below, skimming the bottom of the pool and kicking up clouds of sand in their wake. They were eerily beautiful, their fins translucent and shimmering with an unearthly glow. Some were golden, others silver, others as brilliant as gemstones. All of them had teeth sharp enough to shred them to ribbons.

Nixie-song reverberated through the water, resonating in the very core of her. On land, its magic was muffled by her wards. But here, it sounded sweeter than any aria. Here, colors seemed more vivid. She could feel every beat of her heart in every pulse point in her body. She was dizzy, with either ecstasy or oxygen deprivation. Maybe the two weren’t so different.

Sylvia glanced back at her. Her eyes were as bright as an open flame. She waved a hand as if to say follow me. The air burned in Lorelei’s lungs, and that was enough to remind her to keep moving. She couldn’t afford to drown here like some lovestruck fool. As she swam toward Sylvia, the nixies wove around them, tantalizingly close. She could feel the brush of their webbed hands catching on the billowing fabric of her shirt. Some of them drifted close enough that she feared they meant to brush their lips to hers. They were horrible, but they were beautiful, too. If there was a way to speak with God, to lay eyes upon something sublime, this surely came close.

A few nixies swam through a narrow opening in the rock face of the spring. Without hesitation, Sylvia wedged herself in after them. Lorelei hesitated. If Sylvia’s trust in these creatures was the thing to kill her, Lorelei would return as a dybbuk to haunt her. She would never let her hear the end of it. Steeling herself, Lorelei brushed her fingertips against the stone and eased herself inside.

It was narrower than she’d expected. Rocks closed in on her, scraping against her back. Panic threatened to set in, her lungs straining with the effort of holding the breath inside her belly. With a twitch of her fingers, she tugged on the current of the water. It glided past her in a rush, guiding her through and out into open water.

A stream of light filtered down from above. Sylvia swam toward it, her hair billowing around her like smoke from a snuffed candle.

Lorelei’s vision went black at the edges. Just a little farther.

She couldn’t succumb to the urge to draw breath when a lungful of water would sink her like a stone. She kicked desperately toward the surface as her magic buoyed them. Together, they broke the surface, gasping. With the last of her strength, Lorelei pulled herself onto land, spluttering and coughing.

Every pull of air into her lungs burned terribly, as though they were filled with broken glass. Sylvia watched her with something caught between relief and wonder.

“That will teach me to never follow you blindly again,” Lorelei groused.

Sylvia began to laugh. “Was that not incredible?”

The longer she looked at Sylvia, the less she could disagree with the sentiment.

Sylvia was practically sparkling, her hair pooled like molten silver around her. Lorelei wanted forever to bask in the light of her smile. She wanted to be carried on the current of her whims. She wanted to argue with her until she was breathless. She wanted to hurt her exquisitely, again and again, for as much time as they had.

The depth of her hunger frightened her.

“I suppose it was,” she said huskily.

Sylvia’s lips parted. Her eyes were hooded and darkly inviting, as though her thoughts had been following those same delirious loops of I want, I want, I want . If she looked at her like that a moment longer, Lorelei was going to kiss her senseless.

“We should get moving,” Lorelei said hastily.

“Right,” Sylvia said, clearing her throat.

They ventured deeper into the cavern. Mist drifted along the floor, eddying around their knees, but fissures in the stone overhead let in the faintest wash of sunset. Ferns grew stubbornly in the meager light, emanating their own unearthly glow. She supposed the concentration of aether in the water made everything grow just a little strange. Ludwig would have loved it here.

When this is over, Lorelei thought, he will see a thousand sights as wondrous as this. No one else she cared for would die on her watch.

Eventually, the cavern opened onto a vast basin of limestone. It let in a perfectly round window of sky, from which a waterfall seemed to tumble from the heavens themselves. The cascade gleamed a frosty silver and emptied into a spring. The soil was warm and alive beneath her feet, and the air itself glimmered, as though crystals floated all around them. A sense of quiet awe struck her then. There was no mistaking it.

This was the Ursprung.

For a long time, neither of them said a thing. Lorelei had always prided herself on her rationality, but the last few weeks had disabused her thoroughly of the notion that natural philosophy could explain the whole of the world. There was something wild and magical about this place, something inexplicable, like the thrill of a nixie’s song. Like the sight of Sylvia when—

“We did it!” Lorelei let out a strangled sound of pain as Sylvia grabbed her hand and squeezed. Every one of her tendons screamed, a thousand fires tearing through her arm.

“Oh, Saints!” Sylvia clapped her hands over her mouth. “I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine,” Lorelei gritted out while her vision pulsed black. “Just…be careful.”

If nothing else, it had effectively cleared her thoughts of their moony haze. She felt, for a moment, like the boy in the Albisch Ursprung tale. She could almost imagine a dragon slain above her, its silver blood falling to the earth from a still-open wound. What would power like that feel like coursing through her blood? She would never again need to depend on anyone to protect herself or her people. But even if the Urspung found her worthy of its power, she would be hunted down. She would be reviled.

That alone was far too high a price.

“I’m going to collect a sample,” Lorelei said.

“Of course.” Sylvia’s voice still hummed with reverence.

Lorelei took a vial from her bag and dipped her hands into the water, half expecting them to blister. Mercifully, it didn’t seem to know a true Brunnestaader from a Yeva—or perhaps you had to speak the magic words for it to read the contents of your soul. Scoffing, she filled the vial and corked it. It emitted an otherworldly glow, bathing her face in cold gray light. Swirled within it were particles that glittered like diamond, but its waters were a startling, incongruous black. It looked as though she’d bottled the night sky. She stood and tucked it away again.

“Lorelei.”

Startled, she whirled around. Sylvia was looking at her with a strange brew of uncertainty and hopefulness and expectancy that she could not entirely make sense of. Her face had taken on a rosy hue. Lorelei considered asking her if she was feeling well. “Yes?”

Sylvia shifted on her feet. “Will you come here a moment?”

“Now?” There were still so many things she ought to do. Change her bandages, for one—and catalogue what remained of her supplies. She did not know what had been lost during their travels. She began rummaging through her pack. “I’m busy.”

Sylvia stood there, staring at her with an unreadable expression. After a long few moments, she turned on her heel with a dramatic hmph!

It was only after Lorelei had clumsily managed to pry open her inkwell that she realized Sylvia had been staring at her with disappointment. It flew out of her hands and clattered to the ground. Ink sloshed out of the well and bled onto the stone.

You idiot, she scolded herself.

Leaving her bag abandoned by the spring, she chased after Sylvia.