by Karen Kincy
“Escort?” Juliana narrowed her eyes. “Wolfram, who is she?”
The prince stepped forward. “She’s with Wendel.”
Juliana, already pale, became even paler. She touched her fingers to her mouth, then shook her head and laughed.
“That’s a cruel joke,” she said.
Wolfram clenched his hands at his sides.
“It’s no joke,” he said. “Wendel is here, but he is being hunted.”
“Hunted?” Juliana said. “By whom?”
Wolfram glanced at Ardis. “Assassins. He asked us to leave.” He reached for his sister’s hand. “We have to trust him.”
Juliana’s eyes flashed. “I will trust him after I have spoken to him.”
She swept from the dance floor and glided along the wall, her head held high, in search of her long-lost brother. Ardis didn’t think Juliana would find him. She had lost Wendel herself, in the crowd, and he didn’t want to be found.
She did, however, see the assassins from the Order of the Asphodel advancing.
Through the crowd, she glimpsed gray cloaks and the unmistakable glimmer of chainmail—enough armor to make a man nearly invincible in unarmed combat. Though they were, of course, armed. An assassin’s cloak billowed away, baring the steel of his scimitar and the throwing knives sheathed at his belt.
“Hurry,” Ardis said.
She grabbed Wolfram’s hand and dragged him through the crowd.
“Why do they want to kill Wendel?” he said, sounding more like a boy than a man.
“They won’t kill him,” she said.
Unless he fought to the death, which she feared he would.
An assassin strode past Ardis, so close that his cloak brushed her arm. She clenched her fists, then remembered that her gown disguised her. She swallowed hard and zigzagged through the crowd toward Juliana. The orchestra started playing another Strauss waltz, and she dodged dancers as they stepped onto the floor.
“Juliana!” Wolfram called.
The princess faced them, looking peeved.
“I can’t find him anywhere,” she said, “and I—”
A fantastic crash deafened them. Ardis whirled in time to see Wendel shove a second crystal decanter off the buffet table. It shattered into a thousand shards, and liquor sprayed onto the ladies and gentlemen nearby.
And now the assassins knew exactly where Wendel was.
“Wendel!” Juliana said faintly, and she teetered on her heels.
“What the hell is he doing?” Ardis said.
Wendel hefted a candelabra and hurled it over the table. The candelabra wheeled through the air, rolled into the spilled liquor, and torched the alcohol. Fire rushed along the parquet floor. Screams punctuated the music.
The orchestra squawked to a halt, and the waltz turned into a stampede.
In the panic, the assassins from the Order stood like stones in an ocean. They held their ground as ladies fled from the flames licking at their skirts, as gentlemen ditched chivalry and elbowed through the crowd to the exits.
Still holding Wolfram’s hand, Ardis grabbed Juliana’s wrist and hauled her forward.
They struggled against the jostling crush of people, then burst through the doors into the space of the street. Juliana wrenched free from Ardis’s grasp and slapped her across the face. It was all Ardis could do to not hit her back.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” Juliana said.
“Juliana!” Wolfram stepped between them. “She was trying to help.”
“Who is she? Why is she here with Wendel?”
“I don’t know.”
Juliana started toward the ballroom, but Wolfram caught her by the elbow.
“You can’t go back in there,” he said.
Juliana glared at him, and her earrings quivered with her barely restrained anger.
“But Wendel,” she said.
While they faced each other, Ardis backed away. Smoke billowed from the burning ballroom as coughing people stumbled out. She ran through them, toward sounds of chaos, even though every instinct screamed to run away.
The flames had spread fast. They crawled along curtains and devoured gilded chairs.
“Wendel?” she shouted.
“I said run!”
She whirled toward the sound of his voice.
Blood splattered Wendel’s face and drenched the linen of his shirt. He was breathing hard, but he didn’t look hurt. He wielded the black dagger in his left hand and a scimitar in his right. Doggedly, a dozen assassins pursued him. Wendel let an assassin come close enough to swing at him, then parried the scimitar and lunged down the length of the blade. He drove his dagger into the man’s neck, splitting chainmail.
The assassin toppled back. Blood spurted from his severed artery.
“Run with me!” Ardis shouted.
“No.” Wendel’s voice sounded raw from smoke. “I have to kill them all.”
“You can’t—”
“It’s the only way to stop them.” He bared his teeth. “They know you now.”
An assassin flanked him. Wendel slashed at the man with his scimitar, but the curved blade glanced off the chainmail. The assassin shrugged it off and swung at Wendel’s legs—a crippling cut, but Wendel jumped backward. As he stumbled over a chair, another assassin attacked. He barely parried the blow.
Ardis sprinted to grab a scimitar from the ground.
The instant her hand touched the hilt, she felt the caress of steel against the back of her neck. Her heart pounded in her ears. She didn’t know how many assassins waited behind her, or how fast this one could move.
“Wendel,” she rasped.
The flames in the ballroom soared into an inferno. The heat stole her breath away.
Panting, Wendel lunged for an assassin crumpled against the burning table. The necromancer bent long enough to touch the man’s face, then vaulted onto the table. The undead assassin staggered upright, hand clamped around a scimitar. He didn’t even have time to attack before a living assassin cut off his head.
“Wendel!” Ardis couldn’t speak above a croak.
The scimitar stung her skin. Blood mingled with the sweat trickling down her neck.
From the height of the table, Wendel kicked bowls of fruit onto the ground, and apples rolled under the feet of the assassins. The necromancer smiled as an assassin stumbled, then hacked open the man’s face with his scimitar.
The assassin behind Ardis spoke in a hoarse shout.
“We will kill her,” he said.
Wendel froze, his eyes finding hers, and an assassin leapt onto the table behind him.
Ardis sucked in air to scream a warning. The assassin hit Wendel with a pommel to the back of the head. Wendel toppled from the table and landed on his hands and knees. Still armed with dagger and scimitar, he staggered to his feet.
“No.” He snarled the word.
Ardis stared into his eyes. “Wendel,” she whispered. “You can’t win. Not like this.”
But she didn’t know if he could hear her words.
The assassin behind Ardis grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked back her head. Neck bared, she stared at the ceiling, watching flames spread above like the glorious destruction of the heavens. A chandelier plummeted only yards away and shattered into thousands of broken crystals. This was how she would die.
Like this, in a gown, in a ballroom. How humiliating.
Time fragmented into shards of clarity. She didn’t want to die on her knees. She didn’t want to die without a fight.
The assassin lifted the scimitar to hold it above her neck.
Ardis twisted, ripping her hair from his fist, and tackled his legs. She knocked the assassin off his feet and threw herself onto him. She hit him in the face, once, twice, and elbowed him in the eyes. He covered his face with his hands—everyone protected their eyes—and she heard his scimitar clatter on the floor.
She lunged for the scimitar, but yet another assassin kicked it out of her reach.
“Ardis!”
Gasping, she faced Wendel. The necromancer stood with outstretched hands.
With empty hands.
Wendel never looked away from her as he fell to his knees. He never looked away from her as he let the assassins take him.
The backbone of the Sofiensaal groaned, nearly broken, and chunks of the plasterwork ceiling cracked. Fire fell from above and roared through the distance between them. Ardis stumbled back and shielded herself from the intense heat. Smoke billowed in the ballroom and stung her eyes. Blinking back tears, she tore the skirt of her gown and pressed the silk to her mouth before she staggered onward.
When the smoke drifted away, Wendel was gone.
TWENTY
Ardis ran from the burning ballroom. Coughing, she sucked in a lungful of cold sweet air. She stumbled upon a horse hitched to an ambulance, and it shied away with flattened ears. Firefighters scrambled to pump water onto the flames.
Someone touched her arm. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”
Lady Maili. The sleeves of her beautiful silk gown looked a bit singed, and her eyes were bloodshot from the smoke.
Ardis cleared her throat. “Have you seen Wendel? The man I was with?”
“I’m afraid not,” Lady Maili said. “Are you alone? Why don’t you come with me?”
“Thank you, but I can’t.”
Lady Maili pursed her lips as Ardis wandered into the street.
You saved my life.
The night whirled around Ardis like a merry-go-round that wouldn’t stop. She clung to the thought that if she could return to Konstantin, he would be able to help. Flames still bright in her eyes, she plodded through Vienna.
I swear fealty to you until the debt is repaid.
Wendel had repaid his debt, but she wouldn’t let him go.
Wind raked its fingers through her hair and scraped the heat from her skin. Shivering, she hugged herself. Her feet slipped on the cobblestones. Her lungs burned, and every breath brought her closer to the feeling of drowning.
Smoke. It had to be the smoke.
Shadows smothered Ardis. Not much farther to the Hall of the Archmages. Not much farther before she was off the streets. What if the assassins were hunting her? She quickened her footsteps, her teeth chattering.
Passersby shied away from her like the horse had, and she almost laughed.
Her laughter died in her throat. There, across the street, stalked a tall pale-haired man. He stared ahead with purpose in his stare. Ardis’s heartbeat stumbled. It was the man whose photograph she held inside her locket.
Her father.
Between one blink and the next, he had vanished. A hallucination?
Ardis staggered to the Hall of the Archmages. Gasping, she leaned against the doors until they groaned open beneath her weight. The room tilted. She landed on her knees. She clawed her way standing again, giddy, only to sprawl onto the floor. The chilly marble beneath her cheek soothed the burning of her skin.
She splayed her fingers against the stone, clinging to the sensation of reality.
Then she fell into darkness.
~
“Ardis?”
She blinked open her eyes. She was lying on her back, and Konstantin leaned over her. His face looked deathly white.
“Where am I?” Ardis croaked, her throat raw.
“The Hall of the Archmages,” Konstantin said.
“I remember that much. I walked here, then…”
“You fainted.” He clenched his jaw. “Carbon monoxide poisoning, to hazard a guess, judging by your singed clothes.”
Her throat tightened, and she inhaled sharply. The fire. Wendel.
“Oh, no,” she said.
She struggled to sit, but Konstantin caught her by the shoulder.
“Lie down,” he said. “Please, you only just woke.”
She did as she was told, shivering, and realized she was resting on a couch in an office. Bookshelves reached to the ceilings, crammed with haphazardly stacked books. Sunlight crept through a lone curtained window.
Konstantin tilted his head and pursed his lips.
“Can you breathe better now?” he said. “We were worried when we found you. I have oxygen in my laboratory, and a pressurized chamber. It was built to test deep-sea diving suits, but it will work just as well for—”
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
Konstantin furrowed his brow. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“What do you remember, Ardis?”
“Wendel.” She swallowed hard. “Wendel is gone.”
Konstantin let out his breath in a little puff of air, a sound between disbelief and defeat.
A tear snuck from the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. She rubbed it away. She couldn’t blame it on the smoke. Konstantin knelt beside her and draped a blanket over her body. Blinking, she clutched it closer.
“We failed the mission,” she said. “Spectacularly.”
It sounded so much like something Wendel would have said that her laugh threatened to break her voice. A sick ache lodged in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to cry, not here, but now she couldn’t stop herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Konstantin handed her a handkerchief, and she blew her nose to distract herself.
“The Order of the Asphodel.” She let out a shuddering breath. “They came for Wendel. There were too many of them, too many assassins, and he couldn’t fight them all. I tried to make him leave, but he wouldn’t retreat. He only surrendered when they threatened to hurt me. God, Konstantin, he let the Order take him.”
The archmage stared silently at her. His eyes glittered.
“I know,” he said.
Her heartbeat stumbled. “You know? But how could you—”
“Ardis, that was last night.”
She stared at him. “I was out that long?”
Konstantin climbed to his feet and strode to the window. He yanked open the curtains, and the amber light of afternoon poured into the office. His hands tightened around the curtains, and he rested his forehead against the glass.
“We sent for a doctor,” he said, “but he couldn’t say when you might wake.”
“You stayed up with me all night?” she said.
He glanced back at her and ruffled his hair.
“I had quite a lot of rather boring paperwork to catch up on,” he said, “so the all-nighter was prearranged.”
She met his eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep.” His jaw tightened. “Not after what happened.”
“But how did you know?”
“Ardis.” He laughed bleakly. “The Sofiensaal burned until the ballroom was completely destroyed. Word of such a disaster travels fast in Vienna. And I knew that you and Wendel must have been there, since I sent you.”
“Oh.” She winced. “Margareta must know.”
“Obviously.” Konstantin toyed with a tassel on the curtain. “Though she doesn’t care about Lord Adler’s blueprints. I tried to explain why I sent you and Wendel, but she won’t talk to me. She has bigger fish to fry, as you Americans say.”
“Bigger fish?”
“The Grandmaster.”
The blood drained from Ardis’s face and left her cold.
“He’s here?” she whispered.
Konstantin faced her and nodded.
“Margareta is meeting with him tonight,” he said. “He caught the first train from Constantinople to Vienna as soon as he learned that his rogue necromancer has been helping the archmages with Project Lazarus.”
She stared at him. “What will the Grandmaster do?”
Konstantin shook his head. “I don’t know. But I don’t believe this violated the terms of our truce with the Order.”
She sat upright and clutched her spinning head.
“We have to save Wendel,” she said.
“Ardis,” the archmage said gently, “Wendel belongs with the Order.”
; “Wendel belongs to the Order. Konstantin, he was running from them. He was terrified.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Terrified?”
“They tortured Wendel when he disobeyed them.” Ardis touched behind her shoulder. “His back was covered with scars. They whipped him when he was sixteen, because he refused to raise his first dead man.”
Konstantin looked at her with stark skepticism on his face.
“He showed you his scars?” he said.
“Yes.” Ardis’s voice shook with vehemence. “He wasn’t lying, not about this. Konstantin, we can’t let them take him.”
He sank onto a chair opposite her and slumped, rubbing his thumb over his lip.
“We might want to ask Margareta,” he said, “before we do anything rash.”
“No.”
Ardis swung her legs over the edge of the couch. The tattered skirt of her ball gown slid to her ankles. She clenched her jaw.
“I need my sword,” she said. “It’s locked in a hotel room, and Wendel had the key.”
“Ardis!” Konstantin stood. “You aren’t in a condition to rescue anyone.”
“I’m not sitting here while they torture him.”
The archmage sidestepped in front of the door.
“Let me go,” she said.
“I can’t let you do this,” he said.
“Konstantin. I—”
“Not alone.”
Ardis arched her eyebrows. “You won’t stop me?”
“I can do better than that.” He smiled lopsidedly. “I can help you.”
She exhaled. “How so?”
“The archmages can’t officially interfere with the Order, but that wouldn’t stop us from orchestrating an unofficial escape.”
Ardis hugged the archmage. He startled, then patted her on the shoulder.
“Now,” he said, “you should rest. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a serious—”
“Konstantin.” She withdrew and gave him a look. “Not without my sword.”
He sighed. “Mercenaries!”
But he stepped aside from the door, then handed her a black coat.
“Wear this, at least,” he said, “so you stay warm.”
She slipped her arms through the coat’s sleeves. Konstantin was so much taller than her that it looked like she was wearing robes.
