Shadows of Asphodel (31 page)

“Until I can fix it. Or explain why it
needs
to be fixed.”

The archmage grabbed a tarp and unrolled it over the battered automaton. She took the opposite corner and helped him.

“What happened to Wendel?” Konstantin whispered. “Do you think they…?”

Ardis glanced into his eyes. She couldn’t even guess what they had done to Wendel. She had once a seen a criminal with his tongue cut out, but that had been much bloodier. And that hadn’t silenced him so completely.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Wendel leaned against the wall and raked his fingers through his ragged hair, as if he still didn’t believe how much shorter it was. Then he pressed his hand to his face and slid to the floor. He let out his breath with a hiss.

Ardis felt a twinge of alarm. “Wendel?”

He tried to speak, and failed again. She saw that it hurt him greatly to do so, though she still didn’t know why.

“Wait,” she said.

She found a pen and notepad and slid them across the floor to him. He started to write, his words wavering as his hand shook.

Clever of you. Thank you.

“Can you tell us what happened?” she said.

Konstantin wheeled a chair from a table and nodded at Wendel.

“Sit,” he said, “please.”

Wendel climbed to his feet and sat on the chair. He tugged the notepad straight, then hesitated, the tip of his pen digging into the paper. Ardis saw him swallow hard. He caught her gaze, then motioned to his mouth.

This is their curse. To punish me.

“A curse?” she said. “What kind of curse? What do you…?”

Wendel put down his pen. He clenched his hands, his shoulders rigid, then tilted back his head and opened his mouth. His tongue had been inked with black symbols she couldn’t read. They cut deep enough to bleed.

Ardis found herself speechless for him, afraid that her voice would betray her.

“God,” Konstantin said. “This is worse than I thought.”

“What is it?” she said.

Konstantin pressed his knuckles to his mouth and stepped back.

“I would recognize those runes anywhere,” he mumbled. “It’s a curse. A silencing curse.”

Wendel swallowed hard. Then he picked up the pen.

Is there a countercurse?

Konstantin nodded, then shook his head.

“Curses aren’t my specialty, but I do know one thing. Only the technomancer who cursed you can remove the curse.”

The light in Wendel’s eyes dimmed. He stared at the paper before writing.

That man is dead.

Wendel leaned forward, his head propped on his hand, and touched the pen to the paper. Ardis waited for him to write more, but he sketched line after line across the corner of the paper. His eyes looked distant, his face tight.

Dread settled in Ardis’s stomach like an anchor.

“Who did this to you?” Konstantin said.

Wendel kept blackening the paper. Ardis placed her hand on his to stop him.

“Wendel,” she said. “Was it Hieronymus?”

He narrowed his eyes, then nodded.

Ardis grimaced. “The technomancer at the coffin factory.”

“There was a technomancer there?” Konstantin said.

“Yes.” She rubbed the scars on her wrists. “Wendel killed him.”

Wendel stood, swayed on his feet, and sat back on the chair. His face was deathly pale. Ardis gripped his arm to steady him.

“Wendel?” she said, her heart pounding. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head.

Ardis looked to Konstantin. “Help me. Don’t let him fall.”

Konstantin grabbed his other arm. Wendel shook his head, but didn’t fight the archmage. He blew out his breath slowly.

“I don’t think he’s slept since the assassins found him,” Ardis said.

Konstantin looked nearly as pale as Wendel. “He can’t stay here. But my apartment isn’t more than two blocks from the laboratory.”

“Can you walk, Wendel?” Ardis said

He nodded. They helped him to his feet. After a few paces, he no longer looked so frighteningly pale, and he shrugged off their hands. Konstantin still hovered nearby, glancing at him, until Wendel managed a glare.

“We can take the freight elevator,” Konstantin said. “It’s the long way around, but…”

Ardis nodded. She wasn’t sure Wendel had the strength left in him for the stairs. Predictably, Wendel grimaced at this acknowledgement of his weakness, but she didn’t give a damn about his pride at the moment.

They ascended to the city above.

“Snow,” Ardis said, and she tilted her head skyward.

It fell like goose feathers from the clouds and hushed the nighttime sounds of the city. Shivering, she followed close behind Konstantin, making sure that Wendel never left her side. True to his word, the archmage walked for two blocks before he stopped outside of an apartment building on the corner of the street.

Konstantin let them inside, then hesitated at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Good?” he said, looking at Wendel.

Wendel gave him a thumbs up and a sarcastic glance. Konstantin bounded upstairs, and they followed at a somewhat slower pace. The archmage jangled his key ring, searching for the right key, then unlocked the door.

“Let me get the lights,” Konstantin said.

He flicked on a switch, and electric lamps blinked awake. Curious, Ardis looked around the archmage’s apartment. Small and cluttered, with overflowing bookcases and glowing technomancy apparatuses that looked liked they belonged back in the laboratory. The corner of her mouth curled in a smile. She wondered how much luggage he had brought to Vienna, and how chaotic it had been when he unpacked.

Konstantin patted the back of a couch. “Please, make yourself at home.”

Wendel lingered by the door, wariness plain on his face, like he didn’t trust that much technomancy in such a little space.

“You should sit down,” Ardis said, “before you fall down.”

Wendel looked mildly insulted, but it motivated him enough to walk to the couch. Konstantin bustled off to the kitchen and began banging open cabinets. When the archmage stopped looking, Wendel dropped onto the couch and sank into the cushions. He closed his eyes, and the tension left his muscles.

“Tea?” Konstantin called from the kitchen.

Wendel nodded without opening his eyes.

“Yes, please.” Ardis settled in a battered old chair. “Wendel, too.”

A clock with gleaming naked gears caught her eye. This was bizarre—teatime at two o’clock in the morning, with a necromancer and an archmage. She laughed quietly, feeling the drunkenness of extreme fatigue.

Wendel cracked open an eye and tried to speak, then caught himself.

“Are you hungry?” Konstantin said.

“A little,” Ardis said.

“Good!”

Konstantin sounded happy to have guests. He returned to the living room balancing a platter piled with sausage, half a loaf of dark bread, a stick of butter, and a little jar of mustard. He delivered it all to the coffee table, ducked back into the kitchen, and brought each of them mismatched plates and silverware.

“Here you are,” Konstantin said. “Now you can refuel.”

Ardis smiled at his analogy.

The only seat left was on the couch next to Wendel. The archmage hesitated, then sat as far away from the necromancer as possible. Wendel straightened, completely alert now, and pantomimed writing in the air.

Konstantin jumped to his feet and fetched a notebook.

Wendel wrote, and Ardis tilted her head to read his words.
Thank you for saving me
.

Konstantin blushed to the roots of his hair. “We couldn’t leave you there in the laboratory. Or in the coffin factory, for that matter.”

Wendel arched one eyebrow.
You could have
.

“Please,” Ardis said. “What kind of people do you think we are?”

Wendel realized she was joking, and bit his lip to fight a smile.

“And thank you for inviting us here, Konstantin,” she said. “It was very kind of you.”

“You’re most welcome.”

Konstantin cleared his throat, still blushing, then sat down again next to Wendel.

They ate together in a companionable silence. Ardis helped herself to a second sausage and liberally applied mustard. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until now, or how much being here cheered her spirits.

“So,” Ardis said, “a Prince of Prussia?”

Wendel winced.

Konstantin glanced between the two of them.

“Who?” he asked.

Ardis surreptitiously pointed to Wendel, and the archmage’s eyes widened. He fumbled with the bread he was buttering, almost dropping it, and his face went crimson. He seemed to be having trouble deciding how to act.

“You should have said something!” He blushed redder. “I mean, when you could speak.”

Wendel covered his face with his hand. He reached for the notebook.

Too late,
he wrote.
Disinherited a long time ago.

Konstantin leaned closer to Wendel to read what he had written. Their arms bumped, and the archmage retreated like he wasn’t allowed to touch royalty. Still blushing spectacularly, he buttered his bread so hard it crumbled.

“I should have known,” Ardis muttered.

Wendel cocked his head.

“With that kind of arrogance?” she said. “Of course you were a prince.”

Wendel’s eyes glinted, but he cringed and rubbed his mouth. He couldn’t even laugh. Worry wormed in Ardis’s stomach. When she looked at Konstantin, she saw the same in his eyes. The mood in the room darkened.

Wendel toyed with the pen for a moment.
How did you find me?

Konstantin brightened. “The automatons!”

Wendel cocked his head and waited for him to explain.

“I rewired the control systems,” Konstantin said, “and used the interference to triangulate your location in the coffin factory.”

If the archmage was waiting for a compliment, he wasn’t going to get one.

I see.
Wendel clenched his jaw.
The automaton was not what I expected
.

“What do you mean?” Konstantin said.

Wendel tilted his head and hunched over the paper as he wrote. Then he leaned back and slid the notebook closer to them.

You killed those assassins like insects.

Konstantin’s eyes flickered as he read and reread the words.

“Killing efficiently, Wendel?” Ardis said. “That bothered you?”

Wendel locked gazes with her. Something unnamable burned in his eyes. He touched a napkin to his mouth, and it came away red with blood. He wanted badly to speak, so badly that he couldn’t stop himself from trying.

“The Hex will not last forever,” Konstantin said. “We need Project Lazarus.”

Not even the archmages believed in the architecture of their peace.

“Wasn’t that the plan?” Ardis said.

Konstantin pressed his mouth into a grim line.

“I may be the youngest archmage in Vienna,” he said, “but I’m not the most naïve. Removing gunpowder from the equation might buy us another year, two at most, but that hasn’t stopped Romanian rebels from fighting Austria-Hungary for control of Transylvania. We have been on the brink of war for months.”

Ardis nodded. “I know. I was a peacekeeper there. It’s anything but peaceful.”

Wendel’s pen scratched quickly across the notebook.
And you think an army of automatons will help with peace?

Konstantin frowned. “Austria-Hungary’s safety depends on the strength of her army.”

An army of metal men. You don’t intend to give your enemies a fighting chance.

“Isn’t that the point?” Ardis said. “We win this war as fast as possible.”

His eyes shadowed, Wendel looked away. He tore the page from the notebook, crumpled it in his fist, and tossed it into the fireplace.

The teakettle shrieked. Konstantin leapt to his feet like a wasp stung him.

“Wendel,” Ardis said quietly. “Now isn’t the time to argue with the archmages.”

Wendel looked into her eyes, a crease between his eyebrows, and she couldn’t decipher the complexity of his emotions. There was something like disappointment there, and a desperation that some people called hope.

Konstantin returned with a chipped teapot. He poured them each a cup.

“Enough about the Hex,” he said. “I have been thinking about Wendel’s curse.”

Wendel cupped his teacup in both hands, and Ardis knew he was listening intently.

“It might be impossible.” Konstantin paced around the table. “It might even be too late. But theoretically, if we can work out all the technicalities, Wendel should be able to resurrect Hieronymus and countercurse himself.”

Wendel straightened, the fire in his eyes rekindled, and reached for the notebook.

Constantinople
, he wrote.
The Order will send his body to Constantinople for a funeral.

“When?” Ardis said.

Wendel frowned.
Hieronymus was Greek. They never bury the dead on Sundays. His funeral will be Monday, at the earliest.

Of course a necromancer would know so much about funerals.

“Monday,” she repeated. “The day after tomorrow. Is that enough time, Konstantin?”