by Karen Kincy
“I am serious,” Wendel said, “when I say that I love your laugh.”
His words touched her heart so deeply they hurt.
“I love your smile,” he said.
Should she tell him she loved him? Could she?
“I love your body.”
Wendel’s whisper was almost lost as he kissed her neck. Ardis didn’t know what to say, but she knew what she wanted to feel. She closed her eyes and let him explore her skin with his lips. When his fingers loosened on her wrist, she unbuckled his belt and undid his fly. She stroked his hardness with her hand.
He let out a rough little groan. “I love it when you touch me.”
“Help a girl out,” Ardis said. “Take off your clothes.”
Standing on the bed, Wendel stripped naked and tossed his clothes onto the floor. As he dropped to his knees, Ardis met him halfway. They tumbled onto the tangle of sheets together. She kissed his forehead, his cheeks, his lips. He leaned over the mattress to find the preventive, then lowered her onto a pillow.
Ardis relaxed beneath Wendel. He entered her gently. When she grabbed his buttocks, he thrust deeper. She wanted to make him sweat. She held his face in her hands and kissed him, then bit his lip so that he gasped.
“Harder,” Ardis said.
Wendel clutched her to himself and obeyed. He stayed like that for a second, their bodies the closest they could be, then withdrew. A moan of protest escaped Ardis. He returned to her quicker than before. They found a driving rhythm together. Tension wound tighter and tighter inside her, but still didn’t break.
“Wait,” Ardis said.
Wendel halted, breathing hard, reluctance clear on his face.
“It isn’t enough,” she said. “I—”
“Allow me.”
He stood by the edge of the bed and dragged her down to him. He held her there, his fingernails biting into her buttocks. When he thrust at this angle, deeper still, she gasped at the increased pleasure. She clutched the sheets in her fists, closed her eyes, and let herself surrender to him. He brought her to the brink.
“Look at me,” Wendel said, his voice rough with desire.
Ardis did as he said, panting, her skin feverish. He never looked away as he thrust into her, and the fierce adoration in his eyes was enough to nudge her over the edge. She cried out and clung to the bed. He didn’t stop until he echoed her pleasure with his own. Shuddering, he held her almost crushingly close.
They shared a moment of wordless bliss. Wendel touched his forehead to hers.
“I love you,” he said.
Three words. So small, yet so heavy.
Ardis closed her eyes to hide the inexplicable prickling of tears. She tried to speak, but his mouth on hers left her breathless.
~
Late that night, Ardis blinked herself awake. She stared wide-eyed into the darkness, wondering what had disturbed her sleep.
“No,” Wendel said. “Not again.”
Ardis froze. Her heartbeat hammered in her ears.
“I won’t do this for you,” he said.
She lifted herself on her elbow and stared at him. He was talking in his sleep. His hair clung to his sweaty forehead.
Her throat tightened until it hurt. “Wendel,” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “No, please, no.”
Ardis dragged in a steadying breath and slipped out of bed. She was afraid to touch Wendel. The last time she had woken him from a nightmare, he almost stabbed her with a dagger before he came to his senses.
But she couldn’t let him suffer like this.
ELEVEN
Ardis reached for Wendel’s shoulder and shoved him with her fingertips. He flinched but didn’t wake. His mind had trapped him in a labyrinth of his own memories. She retreated from him, clutching a sheet to herself.
Her fingers shaking, Ardis fumbled with a match and lit the old gaslamp by the bed. The hiss of gas sounded loud in the silence. When the glare touched Wendel’s face, he jerked awake and lurched out of bed. His legs tangled in the sheets. He fell to his knees, scrambled against the wall, and clawed his way to a crouch.
“Wendel!” Ardis said.
“Stay away from me,” Wendel rasped, his eyes glittering.
Fear clamped like a fist around her stomach. She backed away from him.
“It’s me, Wendel,” she said. “It’s Ardis.”
Inky shadows darkened his face. “Ardis?”
“Yes,” she said, her mouth as dry as sand. “I’m here.”
“Are they coming?” he said.
“Who?”
“Them.”
“I don’t know.”
Wendel slid down the wall and hit the floor. His tucked his legs against his chest and touched his forehead to his knees.
“Ardis,” he said. “God, Ardis, I—” His voice broke.
She tasted sourness on her tongue. She still didn’t move toward him.
“You were having a nightmare,” she said.
Wendel rubbed his hands over his face and clutched fistfuls of hair.
“The assassins,” he said.
He said no more, but he didn’t need to.
“Wendel,” Ardis said.
Silence lengthened the distance between them.
“Did I hurt you?” Wendel whispered.
“No,” Ardis said.
Wendel staggered to his feet and stepped past her on his way to the bathroom. He knelt by the tub and twisted on the tap. He ducked his head underneath, water pouring over his face and splattering onto the floor.
Ardis stood in the doorway, still clutching the sheet to herself, and stared at him.
“Are you okay?” she said.
Wendel shut off the water and stared at the drain, his hands white-knuckled on the porcelain. His nakedness bared the scars crisscrossing his back—souvenirs from his twelve years with the Order of the Asphodel.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice quiet and hoarse.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ardis said.
“I can’t sleep like this.” Wendel’s shoulders tightened. “I can’t live like this.”
Ardis blinked fast to fight tears. “The alternative to living isn’t an option.”
Wendel kept his head bowed. Water plinked from the tap and echoed in the silence.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
“Well,” Ardis said, “we could start with a walk.”
Wendel twisted to look over his shoulder. His eyes looked bloodshot.
“Why the hell would I do that?” he said.
She didn’t flinch under his stare. “As far as I know, that’s how this life thing works. You keep moving, one step at a time.”
He let out a bleak laugh. “Unless we freeze to death. It’s frigid out there, Ardis.”
His hint of sarcasm softened the prickling of her anxiety.
“Here.” Ardis tossed him a towel. “Dry off and get dressed.”
Wendel grimaced, but he tousled his hair with the towel and grabbed his clothes from the floor. By the time he finished buttoning his shirt, he almost looked like himself again, if not for the shadows haunting his eyes.
“Ready?” Ardis said.
Wendel nodded and followed her out the door. The stairs of Hotel Viktoria creaked underfoot as they descended. They stepped into the winter night together. Snowflakes whirled like white moths under the streetlamps.
Ardis shivered and hugged herself. “Damn it,” she muttered. “It is frigid.”
“And I’m vindicated,” Wendel deadpanned.
Ardis turned in place and peered down the streets. She wasn’t sure where they should go, so she chose their future at random.
“This way,” she said.
She twisted her fingers with his. He stared at her as if holding hands wasn’t something he did. But his grip tightened, and they started walking together. Their boots squeaked in the snow. Their breath clouded the cold.
“I dreamed about Budapest,” Wendel said.
“Oh?” Ardis said, not sure what else to say.
“I was there to kill a man.” He kept his eyes on the street. “A rich man. He lived in a mansion, with guards. And I remember his children—he had three little boys. Too little to truly understand what was happening.”
Ardis stared at him. “You remember? It was a memory?”
“I never forget my work.”
She shivered at the cold detachment in his voice.
“Thank you for waking me before…” Wendel glanced sideways at Ardis. “My dreams always end the same way.”
She squeezed his hand. “You always dream of falling?”
“I do,” he said.
“I wish you never had to fall.”
Wendel looked away, but not before she saw his eyes glittering. He stopped at the street corner and scuffed his boot in the snow.
“Can you forgive me?” he said.
Ardis dropped his hand. “For what?”
“Everything.”
She studied the tension in his jaw. The vulnerability in his mouth.
“I don’t do indulgences,” she said. “I’m not the Pope.”
He arched his eyebrows. “And I’m not Catholic.” His voice softened to a velvety murmur. “I’m asking for your forgiveness.”
“I’m still angry at you for Constantinople.”
His eyebrows descended. “You are?”
“You fought Thorsten when you knew you would lose.”
Wendel retreated. “Do you think I wanted to die?” He sounded both hurt and scornful.
“Honestly?” Ardis said. “I wasn’t sure.”
“Christ.”
Wendel looked away, his jaw clenched, his hands fisted at his sides.
“I wanted to win,” he said. “If I won—I thought that I would be free.”
Anger smoldered in his eyes, and Ardis touched his arm to calm him.
“But you are free,” she said.
He stared at the snow. “Is this what freedom feels like?”
“Yes,” she said. “Congratulations. It’s not paradise, but at least you can run away with me to Switzerland some day.”
He smiled sadly. “Will I still have nightmares in Switzerland?”
Ardis hesitated, and his smile faded.
“No,” she said. “You will be too busy dreaming about chocolate and cheese and meadows high in the mountains.”
Wendel’s smile returned, more wicked than before.
“Or dreaming about you naked in bed,” he said.
“Speaking of bed,” she said. “We should go back. We need to be at the Hall of the Archmages at seven o’clock tomorrow.”
Wendel’s sigh drifted away as fog. “Killing time until Switzerland.”
~
Morning dawned over Vienna with sunshine in a hazy violet sky.
The taxicab braked to a halt outside the Hall of the Archmages, a grand dame of a building with a stately marble façade. Wendel hopped out of the automobile and offered Ardis a hand. She thanked him with a nod.
Together, they entered the Hall of the Archmages. Their footsteps echoed under a dome that glittered with a mosaic of the stars and the moon. The guards at the entrance stared at them, and Ardis wondered if her boots were too grimy for the marble floor. Though the guards seemed warier of Wendel, the necromancer.
The door to Konstantin’s office stood ajar. Ardis rapped on the doorframe.
“Come in!” Konstantin said.
She nudged open the door and discovered the archmage standing by his desk, shuffling through papers and squinting at them.
Konstantin glanced at them. “You’re here. We have to hurry.”
“Are we late?” Wendel said.
Ardis spotted a clock on the wall. “It’s ten until seven.”
“Yes,” Konstantin said, “but Margareta has scheduled a debriefing on the Wanderfalke, and Himmel is still in the hospital.”
“In the hospital?” Ardis said. “Is he all right?”
Konstantin cleared his throat and ruffled through some papers.
“I’m afraid not,” he said.
Ardis grimaced and glanced at Wendel, who looked more concerned for the captain than he would ever admit out loud.
“We can visit him later,” Konstantin said.
Konstantin tucked a folder of papers under his arm and bustled from his office. He led them down a hallway adorned with portraits of archmages long dead, then shoved through a pair of wooden doors that groaned on their hinges.
A battle-scarred oak table dominated a long meeting room. Margareta leaned in a throne of a chair. Her steely gray hair glinted in the sunlight pouring through the windows. Tesla tilted his head politely as he listened to her talk. Around a dozen crewmen from both the Wanderfalke and the Jupiter sat farther down the table.
“Archmage Margareta,” Konstantin said.
She waved imperiously at them. “Please, sit.”
Three seats remained by Tesla. Konstantin lingered behind him, then dragged out a chair. Ardis and Wendel followed suit.
“Archmage Konstantin,” Margareta said. “Please share your report.”
Konstantin flipped open his folder. “On the afternoon of December 25th, the Wanderfalke was attacked by a clockwork dragon we believe to be an invention of the Russians. The dragon’s arrival was preceded by a scouting party of clockwork wasps.” He slid forward a detailed mechanical diagram. “This is a sketch of a clockwork wasp that I deconstructed in my laboratory last night. The other wasp was destroyed.”
“Destroyed is an understatement,” Wendel muttered.
Ardis nudged him with her elbow, sure his sarcasm was unwelcome here.
Margareta leaned forward and inspected the diagram. “Any theories on the maker?”
“Fabergé,” Konstantin said. “Judging by the intricate enamel.”
“Was the wasp dangerous?” Margareta said.
“Yes.” Konstantin thinned his lips. “Ardis, would you show us your arm?”
When Ardis stood, her chair screeched on the floor. She resisted the urge to wince and managed to look stoic, like a mercenary should. She unwrapped the bandage and raised her arm. The sting had faded to a purplish welt.
“The clockwork wasp stung my arm,” Ardis said. “It felt like a normal sting.”
“Though the doctor found something abnormal,” Konstantin said.
Ardis lowered her arm. “The sting started itching. Badly. When I went to the doctor, she cut out a clockwork larva.”
The men grimaced and leaned away. Ardis was secretly satisfied by their disgust.
“Thank you, Ardis,” Konstantin said. “I believe the clockwork larva acted as a tracking device and betrayed our position to the Russians. Unfortunately, I didn’t come to this realization until the clockwork dragon attacked.”
Margareta steepled her fingers with a look of grim scrutiny.
“How large was the clockwork dragon?” she said.
“Approximately twenty meters long,” Konstantin said.
“Airspeed?”
“As fast as our zeppelin. At least.”
A man in an American uniform cleared his throat. He had an impressive beard, dark and streaked with silver.
“Yes, Captain Hobson?” Margareta said.
“By our estimate,” the American said, “the top airspeed of the clockwork dragon would be about eighty miles per hour.”
Captain Hobson spoke correct German, albeit with a strong American accent.
Konstantin squinted. “One hundred and twenty-eight kilometers per hour. Roughly.”
“And how was the dragon powered?” Margareta said.
“Unknown technomancy,” Konstantin said, a bit breathlessly.
Tesla lifted his hand. “Would it be possible for me to examine the clockwork wasp?”
Blushing, Konstantin clutched his folder to his chest. He looked rather like a student eager to please his professor.
“Why, of course, Mr. Tesla,” he said.
“Is the specimen here i
n Vienna?” Tesla said.
“Yes, in my laboratory.” Konstantin glanced at Margareta. “Though I will bring the wasp to Prussia whenever we leave.”
“You leave today,” Margareta said.
“Already?”
“Captain Hobson will fly you to Prussia on the USS Jupiter. In exchange, you will give Tesla a tour of Project Lazarus upon arrival.”
Konstantin’s eyebrows shot skyward. “When was this decided?”
“Earlier this morning.” Margareta pursed her lips. “Do you object?”
“No, not at all!” Konstantin stammered. “I would be honored to show Mr. Tesla the prototypes. Though I may require a little time to prepare the laboratory, since I’m afraid I left it in a rather disorganized state.”
Tesla leaned with his hand on his mouth, though it didn’t entirely hide his smile.
“Rest assured,” he said, “I’m sure I will be too fascinated by your inventions.”
Konstantin’s blush deepened to scarlet. He seemed to be holding his breath.
“I hope the archmage doesn’t faint,” Wendel whispered.
Ardis shot him a look. She hoped he behaved himself until the end of the debriefing.
“On the behalf of the archmages,” Margareta said, “we would like to thank Captain Hobson and the crew of the USS Jupiter for rescuing the survivors from the Wanderfalke. Your courage will not be forgotten.”
“We wish we could have done more,” Captain Hobson said.
Margareta met his gaze. “I can’t speak for the empire, but I suspect Austria-Hungary would welcome an alliance with America.”
Captain Hobson nodded. “The USS Jupiter casts off from Aspern Airfield at noon.”
“Excellent,” Margareta said. “Archmage Konstantin, you will be responsible for transferring your team to the airship.” She glanced at Wendel when she said this, and Ardis knew they needed the necromancer.
“Yes, ma’am,” Konstantin said.
Margareta stood. “That concludes this debriefing.”
Everyone shoved their chairs from the table. Ardis lingered, biting the inside of her cheek, and watched Margareta leave.
“Ardis?” Wendel said.
“I need to talk to Margareta,” she said. “Alone.”
