Chapter Twenty-Nine

Twenty-Nine

Time slipped away from Lorelei.

In the wake of the Ruhigburg Expedition, once the ink had dried on their degrees and the death certificates, she settled outside the Yevanverte and carved out a meager existence for herself. She took tea with Ludwig every week; predictably, his curse had proven just as much an academic fascination as she expected. She walked the rose gardens with Her Majesty Queen Heike—long may she reign—when both of them could find time in their schedules. She went home, when she could, to see her family and give Rahel the latest court gossip. Mostly, she attended her duties at court. Every now and again, Wilhelm saw fit to bestow on her some update on his dealings with Albe or Sylvia’s well-being. It was either kindness or subtle viciousness. Either way, Lorelei downed each morsel like the sweetest poison.

Civil war had come and gone in four months, as short and brutal as life itself. One display of the Ursprung’s power, and Wilhelm’s opponents had surrendered. For the first time in decades, even the Albisch had been subdued. Apparently, they had taken to calling their new duchess Saint Sylvia.

It infuriated Lorelei to no end. Saint Sylvia! She was far from an expert on the subject, but she was fairly certain that one could not be both a saint and alive.

It was far easier to be annoyed at what she had helped set in motion. Sometimes, the weight of responsibility sat on Lorelei so heavily, she couldn’t sleep. But for now, the Yevanverte was safe; she was safe. She clung to that cold comfort on her worst nights. Her ghosts, at least, did not follow her as relentlessly as they once did. And when they did, they were gentler. Aaron’s laughter echoing down the alleys outside her father’s home. Ziegler’s brassy voice carried on the breeze outside the lecture hall. Sometimes, Lorelei thought she saw Adelheid’s broad silhouette in an east-facing window that overlooked the river. Although she could not see her eyes, she could feel her gaze. It was melancholy, almost wistful. She had taken to avoiding that part of campus on the occasion she found herself there.

Instead, she dreamed of silver eyes in the shadows, the heat of Sylvia’s mouth on hers. It was a torture far worse than any she’d ever conjured for herself: four months without her. Four months without hearing her sing or listening to her prattle on about something or another. Four months without seeing her smile, as bright as sunlight. Lorelei didn’t know how she could ever forget her, when everything reminded her of Sylvia.

It was a typical summer afternoon, sticky and languid with heat. Lorelei was, as she always was these days, sorting through the paperwork. Ziegler, it turned out, not only resented her role as chamberlain but was quite bad at it, too. There were thousands upon thousands of letters addressed to Ziegler, most of them fawning and simpering. There were hundreds more documents that needed her review that she clearly had not bothered with. Although the entire world knew of her death by now, Lorelei took a perverse joy in replying to the most obsequious of Ziegler’s fans to “inform” them of her passing. Ziegler had betrayed her, but Lorelei still loved her best. The rest of these sycophants should know it. Once she’d finished, she began screening the correspondence that passed through her office.

There were, after all, rats to catch.

Sorting the mail was a full-time job all its own. This morning, she’d arrived to a new towering stack. It had slumped over in defeat the moment she closed the door behind her. Lorelei had kicked the bulk of it, scattering it farther across the room, which did make her feel better—at least until she had to gather up the wreckage and organize it again. After a few hours, she plucked an audaciously purple envelope off the floor.

There was a sprig of lavender tied to it with twine. For a moment, Lorelei considered the distinct possibility that it was some sort of assassination attempt—or else a cruel joke. It looked like the kind of letter one would send their lover.

Over the past few months, Lorelei had grown accustomed to the language of courtiers. According to some, lavender meant devotion—but also silence. She wondered which the writer had intended. Lorelei turned it over. She nearly dropped it when she saw the handwriting: unmistakably Sylvia’s. Of course she would send documents regarding matters of state that looked like this .

But upon closer inspection, Lorelei saw it was addressed to her.

Her hands seized up. The court doctor had done the best he could for her injury, but it was still finicky. There was nothing to be done for her when the weather—or her mood—turned. She spent a few moments working out the knot in her palm, the nerves firing as if in anticipation of some blow. She wanted to tear the letter to bits and cast it into the wind. She wanted to copy down the address and write a scathing reply. But what was there to say?

Everything. Nothing.

She could not open it. Sylvia had not written in all this time, and she dreaded to think of what had taken so long. Perhaps her feelings had changed. Perhaps she was too busy enjoying her divinity. Or…

The thorns around her heart had withered sometime in those bright days she thought Sylvia was really hers. They’d been replaced now by a horrid, intractable weed. Hope. She couldn’t cut it down, no matter how desperately she tried.

Lorelei loved her even now.

She had her own signet ring, her own office, her own life . So much had changed and yet so little. She was still bitterly unhappy. Lorelei shoved the envelope back in the pile and resumed her work.

On a balmy evening, Lorelei returned to her favorite spot by the river. The Vereist chugged lazily past her, solid black against the sunset. In the gloaming, the world was washed in shades of emerald and gold. Fireflies drifted over the fields racing toward the horizon, reminding her of the irrlicht glowing like lanterns in the woods of the Vanishing Isle.

“They told me I might find you here.”

Lorelei choked on a breath.

Sylvia von Wolff was standing behind her. Her hair danced in the wind rising off the river. The fading sun haloed her in soft, golden light. She was—

Lorelei felt—

She’d no words at all. Lorelei rose to her feet. She took a step closer to her, casting her in shadow. Sylvia cranked her neck to meet her gaze, her eyes wide and waiting. She looked exactly as Lorelei remembered—and nothing at all like she remembered. She scoured Sylvia’s face for signs of new battle scars but found none. It was only the bone-deep weariness in her face that was new. Even so, hope shone out of her like a beacon.

The branches of the weeping willow clattered and hushed softly in the breeze. It smelled of things beginning to die: a warm, amber smell. They had last stood here a lifetime ago, with the spring mists coiled around them and the expedition hovering over them like a blade. If Lorelei closed her eyes, she could almost imagine the pallid face of a nixie rising out of the water.

“How blessed I am,” Lorelei said. “To what do I owe the immense honor of being visited by a saint?”

Sylvia winced. “I did not realize that would reach you here.”

“Oh yes. Word of our savior certainly reached me.” Lorelei knew she was being unpleasant, but she could not help herself. Hearing Sylvia’s voice again lit a spark within her. She felt, for the first time in months, light and incandescent and—and utterly furious . “Ruhigburg is not that much of a backwater.”

“It is good to see you so unchanged.” Somehow, she managed to sound both cross and fond. “How is your family?”

“How is my family? That is all you have to say to me?”

Sylvia winced again.

“They’re well, thank you,” she spat. “Now, good day to you, Your Grace—or should I say Your Holiness? I know you’re very busy. I’ve seen your calendar, and—”

“Lorelei,” she said urgently. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry ?” Lorelei felt nearly hysterical now. “I understand, of course, why you did what you did. But after the war was over, I thought…” I thought you would come back for me. The words caught in her chest like a burr. “You have more responsibilities now, I know. If you didn’t want me, you could have said so. If you don’t love me—”

“Of course I love you, you impossible, oblivious, self-martyring—”

“You…” Lorelei could not even delight in those words she’d yearned to hear for so long. She felt as though she were about to catch flame. “What else was I supposed to think? You never wrote. You didn’t even say goodbye. I would have thought you were dead had I not seen your letters for Wilhelm come through, or all the shrines raised to you in the city, so I… What are you doing?”

Sylvia lowered herself to her knees and took Lorelei’s hand. “I tried to write. I did, in fact, many times. But you are a very difficult woman to get ahold of, Lorelei Kaskel. You never replied. I think I should be the one who is angry.”

Her tone was light, almost teasing. Lorelei couldn’t make sense of it. All those letters were for her ? She’d never bothered to check. Why would she, considering they’d arrived at her office and not her flat? God. She had been passing those letters along to Wilhelm for months. Why had he not said anything? Knowing Sylvia, they probably contained all manner of…of florid declarations and God knew what else. Now that she thought about it, he had occasionally looked at her with a mysterious little smile on his face or—more inexplicably—recited poetry of uncertain provenance and asked her opinion. Poetry! She wanted to lie down and die.

“I’ve been busy,” she croaked.

Twilight darkened the sky, and candlelight bloomed in all the windows of the university’s buildings. The nights were arriving sooner and sooner as autumn nipped hungrily at the edges of summer, but they were still warm and humid. The fireflies blinked like stars.

“As have I.” Sylvia carefully took Lorelei’s wrist in her hand and raised it to her lips. She kissed the heel of her palm, a gesture of courtly grace. The warmth of her lips was blistering, even through Lorelei’s gloves. “I have lost count of how many villages I’ve visited and how many ‘miracles’ I have been asked to perform. On top of that, we are preparing for the harvest season, and it has been an endless challenge to reach an agreement in my court regarding our relationship with Brunnestaad. However, I think matters have been settled.”

Lorelei wasn’t quite sure what Sylvia was saying anymore. Her head was spinning. Heike and Wilhelm had married last month, but he had a sister. It made sense, of course, to unite their families. “Congratulations. When is your wedding?”

Sylvia’s eyes sparkled. “When would you like it to be?”

“Don’t mock me,” Lorelei whispered.

“I am being very serious.” She sounded a bit cross now. This was not off to a good start. Lorelei opened her mouth, but Sylvia barreled onward with what Lorelei was now convinced was a script she’d prepared. “One word from you, and I shall be the happiest woman in the universe.”

“What.”

“Not that one,” Sylvia said.

“I…” Lorelei blinked hard. But when she opened her eyes, Sylvia von Wolff was still kneeling before her. This was a dream there was no waking from. She looked genuinely apprehensive. It did not suit her. “I hope you understand that I will make every day of your life more difficult than the last, more complicated than it otherwise would be.”

“I welcome it.”

“We…We will bicker endlessly, you know. In the court and outside it. This changes nothing.”

“I’d expect no different.”

“My duties to the king—”

“Can be balanced with living, assuming I cannot steal you away for myself.” Sylvia smiled at her. “Please, Lorelei. There is so much to do in this one glorious life we were gifted. We can travel. We can write. We can ride mara through open fields and run wild alongside the kornhunds. We can swim with nixies and tame lindworms, and maybe someday, with time, the world will realize there was never anything wrong with someone like me loving someone like you.”

“That is a fantasy,” Lorelei whispered. “The loveliest fairy tale I have heard in all my life.”

“Yes,” Sylvia said, with such emphatic tenderness. “But it’s ours.”

Lorelei could do nothing else but drop to her knees and kiss her. She pushed Sylvia down into the grass. When she pulled back, breathless, Sylvia fixed her with a smile as bright as the sun itself. In all her folktales, never was there an ending so sweet and strange as this.

“Yes. I will marry you, you romantic fool,” Lorelei said against her lips. “May we write many more together.”