Books had a scent, she realized, as they passed level after level of libraries and laboratories, shelves lining their round walls, packed with brightly bound volumes in tight rows. The books meant nothing to her. The sildroher had no pen and paper; no parchment survived beneath the waves, and they had no need of it. Their histories and knowledge were held in song.
At each level the apprentice named another subject: history, augury, geography, mathematics, alchemy. Ulla hoped they’d wind all the way to the top of the tower, where she knew they’d find the famous observatory. But instead, when there were still many floors above to discover, the apprentice led her from the spiral stairs to a dimly lit room set with long tables and tall glass cabinets. They were full of odd objects—a golden hoop spinning continuously on its axis, stuffed birds with scarlet feathers and glossy beaks, a harpoon made of what looked like volcanic glass. One entire shelf was taken up by hourglasses of different sizes and filled with varied colors of sand, another contained flats of insects pinned to boards, and still another was crowded with many-legged specimens floating in sealed jars of amber fluid.
Ulla drew in a breath when she glimpsed a sykurn knife, wondering who it had belonged to and what possible reason its owner could have for relinquishing it. But she forced herself to move on, conscious of the apprentice’s observant gaze.
They passed a vast mirror, and Ulla saw their shapes reflected in the gloom. The girl in the glass waved.
Ulla leapt back and the apprentice laughed. His reflection joined him, though the pitch was not quite the same.
“I can hear him,” Ulla said, clutching the edge of the table. It was as if the boy in the glass was simply another boy in another part of the room, as if the frame were an open doorway.
“It’s an illusion, nothing more,” the apprentice said, and his reflection gave a dismissive wave of his hand.
“A powerful one.”
“A useless one. It’s a frivolous object. My master’s predecessor made it while attempting to find a way to place a soul in the mirror so that the old king might live forever once his body was gone. All he managed was this.”
Ulla peered at her reflection, and the girl in the glass smiled. No wonder others shied away from her. There was something sly in the mirror girl’s expression, as if her lips might part and show an extra row of teeth.
“It’s impressive nonetheless,” she managed.
“It’s a waste. The reflection has no soul, no animating spirit. All it can do is echo. The new king brings it down for parties to charm the guests. You’ll see at the ball. They put it in the main hall as a diversion. You can even have a little conversation with yourself.”
Ulla could not resist such a temptation.
“Hello,” she said tentatively.
“Hello,” the mirror girl answered.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” There was that smile again. Did Ulla imagine it or had the girl’s inflection changed?
Ulla sang a soft note, not a spell, just a sound, and the girl opened her mouth, joining Ulla in harmony. Ulla couldn’t help the delighted laugh that sprang from her, but the mirror girl flushed when she saw the apprentice’s bemusement.
“It seems I am as easily entertained as the king’s party guests,” said Ulla.
His lips quirked. “We all love novelty.”
The apprentice’s gaze slid to their reflection, and he squared his shoulders so that he and Ulla stood side by side, much the same height, their hair as black and gleaming as deepwater pearls.
“Look at that,” he said, and his reflection lifted a brow. “We might almost be blood relations.”
He was right, Ulla realized. It was not just the hair, or the slender-reed build that they shared. There was something in the shape of their faces, the sharp cut of their bones. She touched her fingers to her scalp as if she could still feel her mother’s hands tugging, tugging at her braids, hear her doleful song withering their garden and filling Ulla with regret. The apprentice was offering her an answer, an oyster pried open, a jewel upon a plate. She need only reach for it.
She said nothing.
“Why are you here in S?ndermane?” he asked, and his reflection remained quiet as if waiting to hear the answer too.
Ulla ran her thumb over the table. Her reflection blinked rapidly, looking far more flustered than she would have liked. “I came for the cool weather,” she said lightly. “You came here to study?”
“No,” said the apprentice. The gray eyes of his reflection narrowed. His voice was like the cold pull of a glacier. “I came here to hunt.”
Beneath the waves, small creatures survived by hiding when a predator was near, and everything in Ulla longed to cower, to tuck herself into some scrap of shadow and escape his gaze. But there was nowhere to hide here on land, and the sildroher did not shrink from humans. She had song and he was only a mortal.
Ulla turned to the apprentice, made herself meet his gaze without flinching. “Then I wish you good fortune,” she said. “And easy prey.”
He smiled, the same sly, dangerous smile she’d seen on her own face in the glass. Ulla had come for answers, but why should she believe this boy knew anything about her? For all she knew, his mysterious words had been nothing but an empty lure. Best to get away quickly. Besides, even in that long ago time, Ulla knew a bad bargain. Maybe this boy held secrets, but whatever knowledge he might possess would not be worth the price. She turned her back on him and forced herself not to run as she began the long, winding journey down the stairs.
Despite the apprentice and his threat, for a time Ulla was happy. They all were in their own ways. Roffe took his pleasures; Signy suffered but drowned her longing in a tide of human lovers; and Ulla let herself be carried away too, far from the clutter of ardent hearts, into the wilds of the wood, where the pines made a green cathedral and the air was thick with the smell of sun-warmed sap. She watched for deer and beaver, stained her lips with berries, marked the sun on its path as it set beneath the horizon, then rose again to color the whole world.
At night, she feasted with the others, watched Signy hope, and Roffe charm, and all his golden brothers hold court. The beauty that had revealed itself in Ulla when she came to land earned her gifts of jewels and poetry, posies left outside her door, even a proposal. Nothing could tempt her, and this only strengthened her allure. The steady beat of mortal fascination made her weary.
She would sit for hours as the great hall emptied, listening to the human musicians, studying their fingers on the frets of an oud, giving herself over to the thump of the drum, the pull of the bow, until the last note was played. There were legends of instruments enchanted by sildroher and gifted to human favorites. Finger cymbals that made the dancer more graceful, harps that would play themselves when their strings were wetted with blood. But for Ulla there was only music.