Chapter Nine

Nine

For the first time since they’d left, the sun succeeded in burning away the mist. The landscape had transformed from the dismal marshes that stretched over the central empire to mountain ranges that scraped the bellies of the clouds. They were tall and jagged as a dragon’s spine, as if one had folded up its wings and laid down its head to rest. The waters beneath the Prinzessin ’s hull were a clear, deep green. Light sparkled on its surface, almost blindingly after so long spent on the fathomless dark of the Vereist.

The morning after the Alp Incident, Emma told them the Prinzessin would go no farther. Heike’s charted course guided them through the tributaries of the Vereist, which spread across Albe like veins on the back of a delicate hand.

“Shallow waters,” the captain had said. Her gray eyes were set on some far-off point on the horizon. “You’re on your own from here.”

They had three sleek rowboats readied for the rest of the journey, each of them loaded up with boxes of scientific instruments and empty wooden crates to carry back any specimens they found. Lorelei picked her way across the deck, dodging through the bustling crew as they prepared to drop anchor.

Sylvia was waiting on the deck already, her bag slung across her shoulders and her arms folded over the railing. Early morning sunlight painted her in a soft warmth as she gazed up at the mountains. Home . It was written in the sparkle in her eyes and the gentle smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Lorelei felt as though she were intruding on something private. It stirred up a strange brew of jealousy and wistfulness within her. What must it be like, she wondered, to feel you truly belonged to a place? She did not expect she’d ever find out.

Before she could announce herself, Sylvia turned toward her. “Hello, Lorelei.”

“Hello,” she said stiffly.

Sylvia regarded her coldly. She supposed she deserved it after their argument last night. All she could think of was the determined fire blazing in Sylvia’s silver eyes when she said, I can’t do nothing.

Strangely, guilt needled at her. So Lorelei found herself saying, “You must be glad to be home.”

Sylvia’s expression turned suspicious, but she was not angry enough to ignore Lorelei’s attempt at conversation. “I am not home just yet. We’re in Waldfl?che—well-known for its hops, if I’m not mistaken. Still, it’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

“Its hops?” Lorelei asked skeptically.

Sylvia seemed to be genuinely at a loss for words. “The mountains.”

“Ah.” Lorelei tilted her head back to look at them, mostly out of courtesy. With some displeasure, she noted that they were crowned in glittering white. If there was still snow this late in the season, perhaps it never melted. Fantastic. If they needed to cross or summit them, it would make their journey unpleasant and far more difficult than it otherwise would be. Someone would likely lose an extremity or two. “Indeed.”

It was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Sylvia sighed unhappily.

Before Lorelei could salvage the conversation, the others arrived. Each of them was dressed for travel in fur-lined cloaks and tweed tucked into calfskin boots. Heike and Ludwig were arm in arm, giggling over something or other. Adelheid approached with Johann at her side. The very sight of him made her anger flare so hot, her hands began to tremble with the force of it. As if he sensed it, he met her gaze with a challenging glint in his eye. He did not, however, look surprised to see her.

Odd. Had he expected her to survive?

“Are we ready to leave, then?” Sylvia asked.

Each rowboat was meant to hold only two passengers, and they had already paired off. But this posed an opportunity for Lorelei to isolate Johann, one she could not let slip away. She had to be completely certain before she accused him of anything, or else risk the others turning on her.

Grasping for the first excuse that came to mind, Lorelei said, “I cannot ride with von Wolff. We’ll capsize the boat.”

Sylvia gawped at her, a look of pure outrage in her eyes.

Ludwig smirked, but his tone was all innocence. “I’ll go with you, Lorelei.”

Heike rounded on him. “Well, I can’t ride with her either.”

“Must we do this now, of all times?” Sylvia sounded genuinely pained, which admittedly pricked some at Lorelei’s conscience. “I am so tired of you making me feel as though I’m—”

“Insignificant? Unwanted?” Heike asked dispassionately. “Imagine that.”

“Enough. You’re all behaving like children.” Adelheid sighed wearily. “Sylvia, come with me.”

Adelheid and Heike—rather pointedly, Lorelei thought—did not acknowledge each other. Clearly, their disagreement yesterday had driven some sort of wedge between them. Adelheid rescuing Sylvia from Heike’s petty barbs surely would not help matters.

Johann skewered Lorelei with a baleful look. “Let’s go.”

At least she had gotten what she wanted.

But in all her grand machinations, she had not considered the small issue of their heights. Both she and Johann were almost all legs, and she had to fold herself up just so to keep from spilling out of the boat. Neither of them spoke, but she could practically feel Johann’s displeasure pummeling her like a solid wave. Every now and again, he drove his paddle into the water with such force, it sent them veering into the banks.

She considered driving the paddle into the base of his skull but thought better of it. Neither he nor Adelheid would like it, and she did not have a death wish. Instead, she dug her oar into the mud and pushed to right their course.

“Is my company that loathsome to you?”

Johann scoffed but did not reply.

Lorelei pulled up her oar and glared at the back of his head. “I wanted to return something to you.”

Johann turned in his seat, looking rather offended that she had spoken to him unprompted. “What have you stolen?”

“I haven’t stolen anything.”

Lorelei ignored his doubtful expression and pulled the button from her coat pocket. The brass gleamed in the sunlight. Johann took it from her and adjusted his glasses. For a long few moments, he squinted at it in confusion. No flicker of recognition lit his eyes—only a vague curiosity.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“I found it—in my room, as a matter of fact.” Lorelei could not keep the irritation out of her voice. She had expected some kind of reaction. “It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“No.” Johann frowned and handed it back to her. It honestly surprised her that he surrendered it without any fuss or accusations. Surely, there was some dark ritual she could allegedly perform with a button and a lock of hair. As though remembering who he was speaking to, he made his voice brisk and condescending once again. “Do you see the engraving? It isn’t from my battalion.”

Lorelei had no way of confirming if that was true. He had to be lying.

“I see,” she said.

With a dismissive shake of his head, he turned back around.

When she turned the button over in her fingers, the only thing she could make out was a worn engraving of a dragon. One way or another, she would catch him. She tucked it back into her pocket and took up her paddle again.

The river was strong, frothing white around the rocks jutting from its surface. There was something infinitely reassuring about being able to see the smooth river stones at the bottom, a mosaic of cool blues and grays. Schools of bright silver fish cut through the water, and near the swollen banks, turtles basked on logs draped in thick coats of moss. It was all perfectly lovely—and perfectly ordinary. She detected no glimmers of magic in the water, no strange and fantastical beasts, no unusual plant life. Had she not seen the readings herself, she might have suspected Adelheid was lying.

Lorelei found her attention pulled toward Sylvia. Her boat was a solid ten meters in front of the others, even though she was the only one paddling. Adelheid kept her focus trained on the glass face of her dowsing machine. The sunlight spun her straw-like hair into gold, but her jaw was set and her brows furrowed with concern. Even from a distance, Lorelei could see the muscles in Sylvia’s forearms working, the cling of the white fabric of her linen shirt. She had rolled up her sleeves and left her coat draped over the seat beside her.

Lorelei tore her eyes away. What had gotten into her lately?

Ludwig and Heike’s boat lagged behind. Ludwig paddled in between plucking water lilies from the river’s surface and gathering cattails from the banks. They came dripping out of the water and disappeared into the vasculum around his neck. Heike, meanwhile, had her oar slung across her lap and rested her chin primly on the back of her hand, as though she were sitting in a hansom cab. She’d even brought a parasol.

Unaccountably, a shiver passed through Lorelei. The river reflected the trees looming on either side of its banks. They stood tall but at odd angles, like teeth sitting crookedly in gums. The soil beneath them was dark and waterlogged, and the banks of the river looked as though they’d collapsed. All the grass beyond them had died, either trampled or pulled out by the roots. The air hung heavy, like a thick blanket of wool. It dampened all the sound, save for the rush of water.

Lorelei glanced over at Adelheid. The dowsing machine’s wire shivered, far more violently than Lorelei had seen before. Then it went terribly still.

The glass cracked.

Adelheid lifted her gaze to Lorelei and said, with impressive calm, “We have a problem.”

The current guided them into a wide stretch of the river. It seemed to be carved crudely out of the earth in the shape of an open eye. Many of the trees on its northern side had snapped clean in half like broken bones. Others lay flat to the earth, their bark flayed in long, uneven strips. Standing or felled, many of them were marred with deep gashes that wept sap. Lorelei peered over the side of the boat and nearly lost her balance from vertigo. The water beneath their boats was a pure and startling blue that went down for what seemed like miles.

At the very bottom, Lorelei spotted a fleck of red that shimmered like a coin at the bottom of a well. The image of blood pooling against cobblestones stole into her mind, and her stomach lurched dangerously. She tightened her grip on the oar, focusing on the sound of her leather gloves grinding against wood, on the tremulous rush of her breath.

Sylvia leaned over the edge of her boat and went quite pale. “This is not good.”

As if on cue, the water rippled steadily like the pulse of a heart. The splash of crimson at the bottom of the well stirred, and Lorelei swore she saw eyes glowing in the darkness. The image shattered as the water churned beneath them. She could see nothing but a rush of bubbles.

“I suspected something like this might happen.” Adelheid held fast to her machine as the waves rocked their boats.

“Perhaps you should save the gloating for another time,” Heike hissed.

Before Lorelei could draw another breath, something burst from the depths like coils of rope dredged from the sea. Its head breached first, then its neck, then two massive forelimbs with claws as long as Lorelei was tall. They dug into the earth as the beast hauled itself out of the water, and a nearby tree groaned as it snapped. Water sluiced off its scales in gouts.

A blood-red dragon stared down at them. Its green eyes were mottled with gold. As it blinked, an opalescent film slid diagonally over its eye.

Johann made a quick series of hand gestures Lorelei only vaguely recognized—a religious warding of some sort. He muttered under his breath. The only clear word she could make out was demon .

Heike stifled a scream. “What is that thing?”

“That,” Sylvia said wanly, “is a lindworm.”

The only mention of lindworms in Sylvia’s travelogues were the lengths she had gone to avoid them.

Ludwig curled into himself, pressing his forehead to his knees. “We’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

Sylvia shouted, “If you remain calm—”

The lindworm let out a low, rattling growl from deep within its belly. The surface of the water quivered at the sound. It coiled itself tighter and tighter, readying to strike. Its hungry gaze was fixed on Sylvia. She reached for the saber at her hip but seemed to think better of it.

Why wasn’t she doing anything?

All Lorelei could imagine was her pale, terrified face reflected in those terrible eyes. All she could see was her white hair stained red with blood. She did not think. She raised her arms and called on her power.

The aether leapt to answer her, sparks of pale blue shimmering in the air. She gritted her teeth against the weight and force of the river, and in an instant, the thread binding her will to the river’s wore thin enough to snap. A trickle of blood ran down her nose and over her lips. Too much, too soon. She couldn’t do this.

Then, suddenly, it felt weightless.

Beside her, Johann had sprung to his feet to help her lift a wall of water, his face barely flushed from exertion. No doubt he’d trained to handle much more than this. Lorelei dreaded to think what he was truly capable of.

Just as the lindworm surged toward Sylvia and Adelheid’s boat, they curled their hands into fists and froze the wall to ice. It shattered on impact, raining chunks of ice like broken glass. Reflexively, Lorelei drew her coat around herself. Sharp slivers of ice sparkled on the floor at her feet.

The beast hissed furiously and dove back into the water. Lorelei struggled to stay balanced as the wake buffeted their boat.

Johann looked at Lorelei as if seeing her for the first time. “You can use magic?”

She realized her mistake too late. A bolt of panic lanced through her, but she kept her voice even as she said, “Perhaps we can discuss it another time.”

The dragon cut through the water like an arrow, almost too quickly to track, a flash of red in the deep. Beside them, Sylvia crumpled to a heap at the bottom of the rowboat, her arms caging in her face as though cringing from a blow. Her face was ashen, but worst of all was the haunted look in her eyes. Lorelei recognized it all too well: she was trapped in a time and place far away from here. Adelheid stepped in front of her and settled into a fighting stance.

“Stay focused, Kaskel.” Johann’s voice was a low growl.

The lindworm surged out of the river. The waves slapped against the boat so violently that Lorelei lost her footing. The floor slipped from beneath her and for a moment, she saw nothing but open air. Her head cracked against the back of the seat, and black burst across her vision.

The lindworm’s spined tail arced overhead and smashed into another boat. The sound of splintering wood and screams cut through the haze gumming up her thoughts. She forced herself upright in time to see Adelheid resurface from the river, spitting out a mouthful of water. She grabbed hold of a fragment of the rowboat bobbing in the current.

Where was Sylvia?

“Adelheid?” Johann shouted, his panic obvious.

“I’ll manage,” she said. “Handle that.”

Johann’s glare turned murderous as he rounded on the lindworm again. He moved like he was built to fight. It was almost beautiful, the effortlessness with which he pulled water from the river and sharpened it to spears of ice that shattered harmlessly against its scales. With a shout of frustration, he seized upon another wave of water and sent it up. It froze in serrated points.

Johann had clearly lost himself to rage, and Lorelei could see his precision slipping. She could hardly think through the ringing in her skull. With the others incapacitated, it was only the two of them now. The lindworm’s translucent eyelid pulled back, and the full brunt of its furious gaze landed on Lorelei. It gave her just enough of a jolt to think clearly.

“Its eye,” she snapped.

Johann glanced back at her, his lip still curled in a snarl. “What?”

“Don’t waste your time trying to pierce its scales.”

After a moment, understanding cut through his bloodlust. He nodded sharply. As the lindworm reared up again to strike, he drew back his arm and launched a thin, wicked spear of ice at it. It struck true, sinking deep into the bright green of its eye.

The beast shrieked, thrashing. The water churned violently, tossing them on its waves. Its claws dragged into the damp earth of the riverbanks. Sweat beaded on Johann’s temples as he clenched his fists tighter, driving the spear deeper into its skull.

With a final cry, the lindworm’s body collapsed on the shore. Blood poured off its scales and into the river. Pink froth pooled around its body, and red slowly bloomed across the surface of the water. The sight of its broken body, glittering in its death, almost made Lorelei lose her grip on herself entirely. She slumped against the side of the boat, breathing heavily, and dug her thumbs into her temples. The roiling in her stomach refused to quiet.

“It’s unwise to take your eyes off a dying thing, you know,” Johann said. “Everything becomes more vicious and more beautiful in its final moments.”

Lorelei lifted her gaze to him. He stood in profile, but there was a curve of a self-satisfied smile on his lips as he surveyed what he had done.

“Johann!”

His whole body seemed to slacken at the sound of Adelheid’s voice. She stood on the far bank with Sylvia, both of them shivering in their waterlogged cloaks. Lorelei could not read the hard set of her jaw, but a horrible, pleading condemnation burned in her eyes. An entire conversation seemed to pass between the two of them. Johann clenched his fists. Bit by bit, he loosened them and turned them over to stare at his trembling palms. He looked horrified, then ashamed.

As if that could excuse how he’d looked moments before. He’d been wearing the face of a monster.

No, she thought, a murderer.