by Karen Kincy
Jin Hua smiled over her menu. “Bird’s nest soup.”
“No, bird’s nests are disgusting,” Ardis said.
“Bird’s… nests?” Wendel squinted like she might be joking.
“Little birds build nests out of spit.” Jin Hua puckered her lips. “A delicacy.”
Ardis wrinkled her nose. “Like I said, disgusting. Order noodle soup with chicken.”
“I can order noodle soup anywhere,” Wendel scoffed. “Why not something hot?”
Ardis rolled her eyes. “Wǒ jué dé tā bù xǐ huān chī là cài.”
Jin Hua’s teeth flashed in a laugh. “More for us.”
Wendel glanced between them both. “What did you say?”
“Nothing,” Ardis said, biting back a smile. “You don’t like to eat spicy food.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure Germans don’t understand spicy.”
“Remember, I lived in Constantinople for years.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The Ottoman Turks are fond of peppers.”
“There’s spicy and there’s spicy. Peppers and peppers.”
Wendel shook his head. “Are you attempting to deter me from eating dinner?”
She smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
When the waiter returned with a pot of tea, he stared at Ardis until her cheeks burned. He didn’t even pretend to be polite, just studied her face like she was the newest attraction in a zoo. “Are you ready to order?”
“Not yet.” Jin Hua waved her hand as if swatting a fly.
After he scurried away, Ardis growled under her breath. “I forgot about this.”
Wendel tore his gaze from his menu. “Pardon?”
“The whole being a half-breed thing.”
“Yu Lan!” Her mother glared at her.
Ardis scowled. “It’s always worse when we go to Chinatown. They expect me to be all Chinese, but on second glance, they realize there’s something wrong. I’m not Chinese, and I’m sure as hell not a real American.”
Jin Hua pursed her lips. “You can’t worry what idiots think.”
Wendel lifted an eyebrow. “What does a real American look like?”
“Like you, actually.” She realized how bitter she sounded, but she didn’t stop. “You’re a white man. You belong here.”
“In Chinatown?”
“No, everywhere else.” She sighed. “You can always be another stranger in the crowd. You’re just a tourist in this restaurant.”
His eyes cool, Wendel traced the rim of his porcelain teacup. “I doubt they have many necromancers, even in New York.”
Jin Hua glanced at him. “Excuse me?”
Any words in Ardis’s mouth shriveled into dust. She stared at Wendel, her jaw clenched, trying to will him into silence.
“Have I said something wrong?” He sipped his tea, then winced. “That’s very hot.”
Jin Hua raised her eyebrows with a placid smile. “I’m afraid my English isn’t perfect. What does necromancer mean?”
He looked Ardis in the eye. “You haven’t told her?”
“Of course not.” She spoke through clenched teeth. “I left that honor to you.”
Wendel spread his fingers on the table and stared at his hands. “I was born with the magic to bring back the dead.”
Jin Hua’s sharp intake of breath betrayed her otherwise calm face. “Bring back? To life?”
His lips twisted. “Not exactly. The dead stay dead. They simply act under my control.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Consider me a puppeteer of corpses.”
The waiter returned to refill their teapot. Judging by his face, he hadn’t heard a word. “Have you made your choices?”
“No.” Wendel glared at him until he escaped.
Jin Hua’s smile looked frozen in place. “Necromancer is your profession?”
“Was.”
Ardis interrupted. “Wendel left his last position before we met.”
“And where was that?” Her mother sounded sweetly curious. “Please, I would very much love to hear the story.”
On the table, Wendel’s hands curled into fists. “By profession, I meant to say my parents shipped me off to an order of assassins in Constantinople. I would have been a Prince of Prussia, but they disinherited me and marked me as dead on the family tree.” He drew an imaginary X on the table. “No more fortune for me.”
Jin Hua hadn’t blinked while he spoke. “Go on.”
His eyes looked blank and glittering, like cut glass. “For ten years, I killed men. For ten years, I wanted to stop. When they sent me to Transylvania, I nearly died on the battlefield. Ardis found me. I owe her my life.” He spoke with such sincerity, his voice raw and vulnerable, that she stared at him, her heart aching.
“Why are you telling me this?” Jin Hua said.
“Honesty is the best policy.” He shrugged. “Any questions?”
“A thousand.” She picked her napkin from her lap and folded it on the table. “First I must powder my nose. Yu Lan?”
Mutely, Ardis nodded–she couldn’t refuse. She followed her mother into the bathroom. When the door swung shut, Jin Hua opened the floodgates on a torrent of Chinese. “You’re marrying a man who can raise the dead?”
“Yes, and–”
“And he’s a disinherited prince? Of Prussia?” Her laugh was shrill. “Does his younger brother get the crown?”
Ardis gritted her teeth. “There’s no crown, and I’m not marrying anyone for a title.”
“Are you at least marrying him for the money?”
“No!”
With a scoff, Jin Hua turned to the mirror, primping her hair. “I thought he looked penniless. Too many holes in his clothes.”
Ardis sucked in a breath, held it, and let it out. That did nothing to calm her heartbeat, which thudded inside her skull. “Wendel didn’t ask to be a necromancer or an assassin. But he’s made more of himself than that.”
“Has he?” Jin Hua looked sideways at her. “Does he even have a job?”
When Ardis thought of Nemesis, she thought of the other Wendel, the real Wendel, hurt and abandoned in the hospital. Tears blurred her eyes as hot pain choked her throat. She looked away, but not before her mother saw.
“Yu Lan.” She gripped her arm. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
The words escaped on a shuddering breath. “I–I’m pregnant.”
Silence filled the spaces between their words, broken only by the plinking of a leaky faucet. Jin Hua’s grip tightened before she let go of Ardis, as if she didn’t want to touch her anymore. “Are you sure?”
Ardis stared at her blurred reflection in the mirror. “It’s been two months.”
“It might not be. It might–”
“Mama.” She ran the tap and scrubbed her face with cold water, as if that might disguise her tears. “I know.”
“How could you be so careless?”
“Please, don’t–”
“Why didn’t you use protection?”
“We did.” She narrowed her eyes. “Didn’t you?”
Jin Hua looked like she had been slapped, but she recovered fast. “Yu Lan,” she said, “you don’t have to have this baby.”
“I know.”
Back at the brothel, girls disappeared from time to time. Some never returned, but those that did never returned with babies.
Her mother caught her wrist. “You don’t have to marry him.”
“That’s my choice.” She forced herself to meet her gaze. “I love him.”
Jin Hua’s breath escaped in a hiss. “I thought I loved your father. Leo even said he did, but I knew it was just pillow talk.”
His name isn’t Leo. Ardis swallowed the words. She hadn’t confessed to meeting her father, Thorsten Magnusson, in Constantinople. He was Grandmaster for the Order
of the Asphodel; he was Wendel’s keeper and tormentor.
Thinking of Thorsten with her mother sickened her.
“Yu Lan.” Jin Hua looked into her eyes. “Think carefully.”
“I will.” She washed her face again before drying it with a towel. “When we go back out, we have to act like everything is normal.”
“What’s normal about marrying a disinherited prince who puppets the dead?”
“Mama. Please.”
Jin Hua sighed. “I’m not good at lying.”
“Neither am I.” Her stomach wormed with anxiety. “Could you just pretend you don’t want to disembowel Wendel?”
Jin Hua pursed her lips. “I’m politer than that.”
“Please don’t politely disembowel him.”
Her mother laughed. “I can try.”
When they returned to the table, Wendel said not another word about his necromancy or history, and Jin Hua didn’t ask. The waiter frowned when he came to take their orders, but at least he didn’t flee from the restaurant. He dropped a fork by Wendel before presenting Jin Hua and Ardis with bamboo chopsticks.
“Xiè xiè,” Ardis said, as if she needed to prove she was half Chinese.
“What does that mean?” Wendel said.
“Thank you.”
Jin Hua frowned. “You don’t understand any Chinese?”
“Now I do.” Wendel managed what resembled a charming smile.
Ardis sighed and stared at her nails. Jin Hua and Wendel talked about the weather, traffic, and anything else mundane. Whenever either of them looked at Ardis, expecting her to speak, she sipped water and shook her head.
“Are you all right?” Wendel said, after several minutes of this.
“Just tired,” Ardis said.
He squinted at her as if doubtful. At that opportune moment, the waiter returned with their food. Mallard duck, noodle soup with chicken, and lychee chicken chop suey. Steam wafted from crispy meats and hot broth. Ardis picked at some chicken with chopsticks. It would have been delicious, if her stomach weren’t queasy.
“Interesting.” Wendel stirred his soup and watched the noodles float clockwise.
Jin Hua pointed at him with a chopstick. “Eat.”
He fished out a forkful of noodles and chicken. When he ate it, the expression on his face became one of intense contemplation.
“Well?” Jin Hua watched him eat. “What do you think?”
“Not at all what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
He shrugged. “Noodle soup.”
Jin Hua smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “Yu Lan, you need to feed him more.”
Ardis shook her head, amazed at her mother’s ability to make chitchat. It wasn’t true, but it sounded like Jin Hua actually wanted her to marry Wendel, have his babies, and cook for him. She found it less easy to pretend.
After what felt like an endless dinner, the waiter brought the check.
Wendel paid with money from who knew where. “I insist,” he said. Ardis just hoped the coins didn’t have some year from the future.
They lingered outside the restaurant. Here and there, a lone snowflake swung down.
“It’s late.” Jin Hua tugged her coat closer. “I will catch a cab and see you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? Ardis clenched her jaw at the promise of a repeat performance. “Okay.”
“Meet me at your hotel. Nine o’clock in the morning.”
That was early. “Yes, Mama.” There was no point in arguing.
Jin Hua hugged her tight. “Stay warm.”
Wendel bent into a rather formal bow, even for him, which meant it could be facetious. He flagged down a taxi and held the door.
Jin Hua dipped her head in thanks. “Good night.”
The moment the taxi sped down the street, Wendel exhaled in a cloud of white. “Finally.”
“I can’t believe you.” Ardis glared at him, but he was too busy hailing another taxi.
His smile looked distant. “Wasn’t I the perfect fiancé?”
“You were a bastard.”
“As expected.”
“Go to hell.”
Anger burned in her throat all the way back to Hotel Donovan. She ignored Wendel when he offered an arm to help her from the taxi, and when he opened the door to the lobby before the doorman could. He followed her upstairs.
“Ardis.”
“What’s wrong with you?” She unlocked the door to their room, still not looking at him.
“Everything?”
She growled out a sigh. “Wendel!”
He laughed, a hollow sound. “Which of my sins should I elaborate upon? Disinheritance, raising men from the dead…?”
Halfway tempted to slam the door on him, Ardis marched into the room. “You didn’t need to tell my mother anything.”
“You wanted me to lie to her?”
She forced out a laugh. “You never have any problem lying to me.”
Wendel grimaced. “Fair enough.”
“I’m serious.” She rubbed her eyes. “Just–let me sleep.”
He started unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s going to be cold tonight.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting ready for bed.”
She shook her head. “Not in my bed.”
“I’m not leaving.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Not with Nemesis out there.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Oh?” He arched one eyebrow.
“I literally don’t want to sleep with you.” Her cheeks burning, she pointed to the couch. “You’re staying there tonight.”
“Fine.”
“I’m so sick of you.”
He said nothing, which somehow made it worse. Did he think he was too good to argue?
Ardis undressed, crawled into bed, and shivered. Damn it, Wendel was right–it was cold. She squeezed her eyes shut. Once upon a time, she had been used to sleeping alone, but nothing could make her feel warm tonight.
Seven
Blood.
It soaked the sheets tangled around her legs. It streaked her legs and hands. She lurched out of bed and staggered away, but she left crimson footprints on the carpet. Lightheaded, she leaned against the wall, her head spinning.
“Wendel?”
She lost her balance and fell to her knees, crawling into the other room.
He wasn’t there. His black dagger stabbed the couch, pinning a letter to the cushion. She dragged herself to it and tore it free.
I never loved you. Let me go.
Wendel’s handwriting blurred. Gripping the couch, she pulled herself upright. She needed to find him. He wouldn’t write this unless he had lost all hope. He wouldn’t leave her unless he thought he would never come back.
When she opened the door to their room, the world tilted.
She fell through and plummeted into an endless pool of blood. Hot, choking, seeping into her mouth with the taste of iron.
“Ardis.”
She couldn’t breathe. Liquid filled her lungs.
“Ardis!”
Gasping, coughing, she jolted awake and fought the sheets. They were soaked with sweat. Wendel leaned over the bed and caught her wrists, just hard enough to hold her still. His bare skin looked pale in the moonlight.
“Wake up!” he said.
She tried to push him away. Her muscles shook with adrenaline. “Let me go.”
He did as she asked. “You were talking in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“‘I never loved you.’”
“God.” Tears sprang into her eyes. “You wrote that in a letter before you left… there was blood… blood everywhere…”
“There’s no blood,” he said fiercely. “There’s no letter.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He dragged her into an almost crushing embrace. “Don’t. Please
.”
She clung to him, trembling, until the urge to sob faded. He didn’t move, the warmth of his arms consistent and unwavering.
“Wendel,” she whispered.
He drew back, close enough to kiss, but he met her gaze and frowned. “I know I’m not the only one with nightmares.”
She retreated from him and twisted the sheets between her hands. “This is embarrassing.”
He challenged her with his stare. “Is it?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You have seen me at my weakest,” he said. “Let me be strong for you.”
The truth of it stole her breath away. She lowered her head, ashamed of her doubt, knowing she had seen him as too damaged.
“I’m not sick of you,” she whispered. “I still love you.”
He let a moment of silence pass. “Despite it all?”
“Because of it all.”
Wendel kissed her then, his fingers in her hair, tilting her face to meet his. She allowed herself to lean against him.
“Stay with me,” she whispered.
“I will.”
~
Morning arrived with flat white skies, a canvas flecked with birds.
They dressed in silence before descending to the hotel lobby, where Jin Hua sat in a velvet armchair like a queen, her scepter a folded umbrella. She gave them a serene smile, which immediately put Ardis on guard.
“Mama,” she said. “What did you want to do today?”
“Walk around New York City.” Jin Hua braced herself on the armchair as she stood. “We probably won’t freeze to death.”
Wendel smirked. “Provided we don’t stop for long.”
“Are Prussians as tender as a hothouse flower?” Jin Hua remarked dryly.
His smirk verged on a sneer. “I was born in a castle in Königsberg, in northernmost Prussia. Cold has little effect on me.”
“Perfect.”
“I’m merely concerned about the welfare of an elderly lady.”
Jin Hua’s shoulders stiffened, but she wore her smile like armor. “How kind of you.”
Ardis interrupted. “Why don’t we start walking? Before it’s too late for breakfast?”
“Prudent,” her mother said. “We have so much to see.” She looked at Wendel as if she already saw nothing of merit.
They walked straight into a windstorm. Jin Hua attacked the weather with her umbrella, smiling like she enjoyed this little jaunt. Ardis gripped Wendel’s arm, her eyes watering in a gust. Only two blocks from Hotel Donovan, the clouds unleashed freezing rain. Hailstones rattled on parked autos and peppered the sidewalk. Ardis ducked under an awning outside a cafe, dragging Wendel to shelter, and her mother huddled beside her.
