by Karen Kincy
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Did she… force herself on you?”
The question knocked him back a step. He braced himself on the railing, his knuckles white, and lowered his head.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“What, exactly, happened to you in San Francisco?”
Her stomach squirmed with nausea. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.” She had told him before, word for word.
“What do you think I told the vampire?”
She found it hard to look at him. “I don’t know.”
“The vampire attacked me while I was asleep.” His words sounded rusty. “I never had a chance to say no.” He shuddered. “I can still feel her touching me. Her nails were long… like claws… sliding across my skin.”
“Wendel,” she said.
She didn’t want to know the details, didn’t want to force him to relive those moments. He had never pressured her to confess more.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, though she knew how insignificant it was.
“Don’t be. If you hadn’t found me…”
“But I blamed you.” Shame burned her cheeks.
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “I know what it looked like.”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t innocent.”
He let out a dark laugh. “I don’t often hear the word innocent applied to me. Aren’t I supposed to be the soulless necromancer?”
“I know who you are.” She touched the back of his hand, giving him room to retreat.
He looked down at her hand, but he didn’t move away. “I’m not sure I will ever escape the darkness. It will always be a part of me.”
“I know what you mean.”
He looked into her eyes with stunning clarity in his own.
When she breathed in, the air rasped through her throat. “He was a paying customer in the brothel. I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but my mother forgot to buy flowers at the market that morning and sent me for them instead. Jasmine. They were jasmine.” The oversweet perfume still soured her stomach.
“I’m listening,” Wendel said.
“I put the jasmine in one of the empty rooms. Went to get water. When I came back, he was waiting for me. I told him I wasn’t one of the courtesans, but he just smiled at me, like I was joking, and then he shut the door.”
Wendel searched her eyes. “You don’t need to continue.”
“Let me spoil the story for you.” Her laugh sounded harsh. “At the end, I reached for the sword hanging over the mantle.”
“Chun Yi.”
“I cut his throat.” Adrenaline rushed through her veins, like she was there again, trapped in that room, covered in blood.
“Ardis.” He softened his voice. “I wish only that I were there to help you.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.
She leaned against him, resting her head against his chest, and the fist of fear gripping her throat loosened just a little.
“I never want to feel that weak again,” she said.
He was silent for a long moment. “Moments like these are not moments of weakness. But I understand nevertheless.”
“Where do we belong in this world?”
“Together.”
When Wendel held her in his arms, and his heartbeat thudded beneath her ear, it was easier to believe him. But her mind wouldn’t stop revisiting memories of death and violence, and she wondered if they would ever truly escape.
EIGHTEEN
Ardis discovered Konstantin in the dining room. He stared absently out the windows, sipping yet another cup of coffee. The bitter perfume, darker than chocolate, drifted to her nose and made her mouth water.
“Mind if I join you?” she said.
“Not at all.”
She settled at the table. “I thought you might be with Himmel.”
He all but rolled his eyes. “Theodore forbade beverages in the navigation room, as if I’m not careful around delicate equipment.”
She laughed. “Technology and I have a history.”
“True.” Konstantin lifted an empty cup. “Coffee?”
“Thanks.”
As he poured her a cup, he frowned. He kept studying her face as if it were a theorem. “Was there another Ardis?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did Wendel II bring an Ardis II with him?”
“No.” She didn’t bother hesitating or decorating the truth with sentiment. “I died.”
The color faded from Konstantin’s cheeks. “God.”
“That’s what Wendel II told me.”
“Couldn’t he be lying?”
“Unbelievably, he might be telling the truth.” She forced herself to sound lighthearted. “Why else would he come back?”
“How did you… die?”
She stared into her cup, watching light flicker across the dark liquid. “Murder.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Konstantin fidgeted with his sleeve. “Wendel didn’t… bring you back?”
“He did.” She swigged the coffee and burned her tongue. “Whoever murdered me must have known he was a necromancer.”
“What do you mean?”
“The murderer never let me see his face. Maybe he was hideous.”
Her stomach iced over, despite the heat of the coffee. Why couldn’t she keep joking about her murder, pretending it didn’t matter? That couldn’t be further from the truth. She couldn’t stop thinking about her future vocation as a corpse–discarded on the floor of a hotel room, her blood a widening circle staining the carpet.
Dead.
That was the only pertinent factor.
“Ardis?” Konstantin rested his hand over hers.
“I’m fine.” She drew back, curling her fingers into a fist. “I’m fine,” she repeated.
“You hardly look fine.”
“I’m imagining myself dead,” she said emotionlessly.
“Don’t.” He smoothed down his curls, which didn’t cooperate. “I came here to help you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“How?” That sounded bleak.
“First, we find this Wendel. Killing the Kaiser won’t improve our future.”
“Won’t it?” She managed a hollow laugh. “Konstantin, he isn’t the same. He’s vicious. Darker than I remember.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “I have been thinking about temporal magic.”
“Can we send him back?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She leaned back in her chair, trying to disguise her disappointment, and sipped the coffee. “I’m still listening.”
“Technomancers far more advanced than I have studied the effects of temporal magic. Particularly, healing applications.” He furrowed his brow. “More experimental procedures have resulted in mental disturbances.”
“Mental disturbances?” she repeated.
“Time madness, to use the colloquial terminology.”
“Yes, please, stick to layman’s terms.”
Konstantin’s mouth flickered with a smile. “Too much temporal magic, and the mind begins to fragment, even shatter.”
Her mouth felt too dry. Sipping the coffee didn’t help.
“His mind is… shattered?” she said.
Konstantin lifted a finger, as if lecturing on theoretical technomancy. “Wendel has been prone to secrecy, lies, and violence.”
“Aren’t I always prone to that?” Wendel spoke from the doorway of the dining room.
Konstantin jumped. “I’m referring to your doppelgänger.”
“Of course.” Wendel skulked into the room, his eyes narrowed against the sunlight. “Time madness?”
“How much eavesdropping did you do?” Ardis said, sipping her coffee.
“Enough.” Wendel stood behind a chair, but didn’t sit, his fingers curling over the wicker. “Even if you believe my doppelgänger has gone insane, that doesn’t mean he isn’t right. We n
eed to stop Nemesis from killing Ardis.”
Goosebumps prickled her skin. “We need to understand why.”
Wendel arched an eyebrow. “I’m not positive we ever will. Perhaps we have encountered more than one kind of insanity.”
“You think my murderer is a random madman?” she said.
“We have no idea who he is, or why he wants to kill you.”
“How reassuring.”
Konstantin stroked his beard. “At least Wendel can interrogate him after we kill him.”
Wendel smirked. “I appreciate your confidence, archmage.”
“Don’t–” Sighing, Konstantin shook his head. “You know what? I’m still an archmage, in some alternate dimension.”
“That’s the spirit.”
~
Kiel wasn’t what Ardis had imagined.
While they were in Königsberg, it had been gripped by a bleak Prussian winter, but here the snow frosted Kiel like a cake. Nearly even cheerful. They walked through the cobblestoned streets, the raven winging overhead.
“Wendel,” she said, “is your hometown the most depressing part of Prussia?”
He laughed, his eyes sparkling with delight. “Yes.”
Himmel harrumphed. “The shipyards aren’t far from here. We should walk quicker if we want to intercept the Kaiser.”
“Aye, aye,” Wendel said.
Konstantin glanced at Himmel with a look suspiciously like adoration. “Were you ever stationed here with the German Navy?”
“More than I wanted,” Himmel said. “I’m not fond of the area.”
“No one is,” Wendel said.
“I don’t know,” Ardis said, “Kiel seems decent.”
Konstantin wound his scarf around his neck. “It does have U-boats.”
“U-boats.” Himmel grimaced. “Imagine being trapped underwater.”
“Or not,” Wendel said. “Airship crashes have given my imagination plenty of fodder.”
“For once, we agree.”
Wind gusted off the Kiel Fjord and cut through her clothes like a knife. She shivered and tugged her jacket closer, wishing she had brought something warmer. Maybe a wolverine coat like that one Wendel had long ago.
“How will we find my twin?” Wendel said. “Walk around Kiel until Krampus croaks?”
The raven swooped, landed on his shoulder, and clacked his beak. She wasn’t sure what that meant, though it looked bratty.
“We won’t,” she said. “We need to warn the Kaiser first.”
Wendel sighed. “Uncle Willy won’t be pleased.”
Snowflakes drifted onto his black hair. Krampus nibbled at them, preening him, until Wendel waved him away.
“I haven’t felt my doppelgänger’s necromancy since New York,” he said.
Konstantin perked up. “How so?”
“When I’m touching him, it’s unmistakable, but even with distance between us….”
“What does it feel like?” Konstantin fidgeted with his fingers, as if itching to take notes. “How would you describe it?”
Wendel’s gaze focused on something faraway. “Like cold fire.”
“That’s how your magic feels to me,” Ardis said.
He shakes his head. “It’s different on the inside than the outside.”
“Could you elaborate?” Konstantin said.
A smirk shadowed Wendel’s lips. “I could show you. How would you like to be a necromancer for a minute, archmage?”
Konstantin’s eyes rounded. “Ideally, it should be a laboratory environment–”
Wendel grabbed Konstantin’s hand. Every muscle in the necromancer’s arm went rigid. He let out his breath in a puff of white.
“Oh, God.” Konstantin yanked back and stared at his hand. “What…?”
“What did you do?” Ardis said.
“Lent him some of my necromancy.” Wendel’s smile would have matched a halo.
He had given her a taste of his magic, in Constantinople, before she kissed him back to life. The shivering electricity had vibrated through her bones and made it impossible to think. She wasn’t sure how he lived with it.
“It’s gone.” Konstantin shook out his hand as if flinging away a spider. “God…”
“You’re welcome,” Wendel said.
Konstantin looked at the necromancer as if seeing him in a new light. “How much?”
“Pardon?”
“How much of your necromancy did you give me?”
“I don’t know.” Wendel rolled his eyes. “Are you asking for a unit of measurement?”
“Please.”
Wendel started laughing. “Necromancy doesn’t work that way. It can’t be quantified, not like your precious technomancy.”
Pink flushed Konstantin’s cheeks. “All magic can be analyzed.”
“Why haven’t you built a machine to raise the dead?”
“Because you haven’t been cooperative enough.”
Wendel sneered. “I deigned to lend you my necromancy, and you still aren’t convinced of the superiority of natural magic?”
“I never said that.”
“Enough.” Himmel pinched the bridge of his nose. “Both of you arguing will give me a headache. Stay on track.”
“Right,” Wendel said, “wasting our time on the Kaiser.”
Shaking his head, Himmel kept walking, and the others hurried in his footsteps.
Brine tinged the wind, the snowfall thickening, as the sky darkened to pewter. At the edge of Kiel, the docks swarmed with activity. Ardis had never seen a U-boat before, but she recognized them, moored to the piers.
Black vessels as sleek as sharks.
“When will the Kaiser arrive?” she said.
“He’s already here,” Himmel said. “Note the pomp and circumstance.”
She followed his gaze to a cluster of uniformed men on the docks. They kept nodding and tilting their heads like attentive schoolboys, listening to a man in a gleaming pickelhaube, the spiked helmet worn by German troops.
“Let me do the talking,” Wendel said.
He walked toward the Kaiser, but Himmel’s hand clamped on his elbow.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” he said. “Have you ever met the Kaiser before?”
Wendel scoffed. “He’s my uncle.”
“You were disinherited. Besides, you have a raven on your shoulder.”
“Krampus, go.”
The raven leapt into the air, wings pumping, and disappeared over the rooftops. Wendel tugged the lapels of his coat straight.
“There,” he said. “Better?”
“God help us all,” Himmel muttered.
Wendel strode down the dock and halted by the officers. “Gentlemen, may I have a word with His Imperial and Royal Majesty?”
Ardis, Konstantin, and Himmel lingered by the water. Out of the way.
Kaiser Wilhelm II parted the crowd, his left hand on his sword hilt. He inspected Wendel with eyes colder and bluer than the sea.
“And you are?” the Kaiser said.
“Wendel von Preussen. We’ve met.”
The Kaiser’s formidable mustache bristled. “The name isn’t familiar.”
“How could I have forgotten?” Wendel pantomimed surprise. “My father, Waldemar von Preussen, struck my name from our family tree.”
“Waldemar?” The Kaiser clenched his jaw. “You must be the reject.”
Wendel glanced at His Majesty’s left arm, and only then did Ardis notice how it looked too short. Withered, even.
“What was it again?” the Kaiser said. “Hemophilia?”
“Has that ever stopped an heir?”
The Kaiser barked out a laugh. “True.”
“To hell with formalities,” Wendel said. “A man wants to kill you.”
One of the officers stepped forward. “Sir, may I suggest–?”
The Kaiser silenced him with a hand. “Many men want to kill me. Why should I waste my time listening to a wayward nephew?”
“Because you’re the target
of an assassin from the Order of the Asphodel.”
“Those bastards who sold our secrets to Russia?”
“One and the same.”
“How do you know this?” The Kaiser stepped closer. “Who is this assassin?”
Wendel glanced at the sea, just for a moment, before calming his face into a mask. “Wolfgang von Preussen, my twin brother.”
“Twin?” He spat when he laughed. “What rubbish.”
“He prefers to attack under cover of darkness.”
“Leave at once, you disgrace. I have important business to attend to.”
Wendel curled his lip. “There’s no important business once you’re dead.”
One of the officers stood straighter. “How dare you threaten the Kaiser!”
“That wasn’t a threat.” Wendel turned to go. “And it’s necromancy, not hemophilia.”
Without waiting for a response, he strode down the dock.
Ardis matched his stride. “That was a colossal waste of time.”
“God,” Himmel said, “maybe I can still talk to the Kaiser, try to make him understand.”
“I didn’t expect him to believe me.” Wendel kept his eyes focused ahead. “Merely wanted to plant a seed of doubt in his mind.”
“What’s the use?” Konstantin shook his head.
“Sometimes one moment of hesitation is enough to save a life. Besides, he doesn’t need to know we’re guarding him.”
Squinting, Ardis looked sideways at him, until the revelation trickled into her mind.
“Amarant,” she said. “We can use your dagger to hide in the shadows.”
“We?” Wendel narrowed his eyes. “I’m doing this alone.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not waiting in some hotel.” She locked stares with him, daring him to disagree. “And you need my help.”
“Christ,” he said. “But only you.”
“Why not all of us?” Himmel said. “The Kaiser plans to host a masquerade this evening. It wouldn’t be hard to secure invitations.”
“And disguises,” Konstantin added. “Costumes are rather convenient.”
Ardis tilted her head. “We wouldn’t even need Amarant.”
Wendel sighed. “So much for stealth.”
~
Nightfall. That’s when Wendel said his twin would attack. Nevertheless, Konstantin and Himmel insisted upon shadowing the Kaiser.
