Shadows of Asphodel (35 page)

A priest darted toward the necromancer and tossed a flask of holy water into his face. Wendel blinked, curled his lip, and dried himself on his cloak. He flipped up his hood and strode down the aisle to the doors.

Ardis held out her arm to stop the priest from pursuing him. Then she bolted after him.

Wendel waited for her outside the church. He bent with his hands on his knees and spat more of what looked like ink.

“This curse tastes horrible,” he said.

He didn’t sound quite so hoarse anymore, some of the honey returning to his voice.

“Are you bleeding?” she said.

He dabbed his tongue with a handkerchief, which came away stained black.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “And it definitely doesn’t hurt so damn much.”

The priest ran from the church, brandishing a cross, followed by a mob of mourners. Ardis and Wendel shared a glance.

“We should go,” she said.

“Before they bring pitchforks.”

She shot him a glare for the wisecrack.

They dodged into the commotion of the street and zigzagged through the crowd. They didn’t stop running until they had reached the banks of the Bosporus, where they slowed to a walk. Their breath clouded the salty air.

Wendel sucked in a breath, then leaned back and stared at the sky.

“Finally!” he shouted.

Ardis furrowed her brow. “Wendel, are you sure you want to announce your location to all the assassins in Constantinople?”

He laughed, and it was only a little rusty for a laugh. “I make a terrible mute.”

“Actually,” she said, “I agree.”

“Should I be mildly insulted?”

She rolled her eyes. “But we should keep quiet. We just desecrated a funeral.”

“Desecrated?” He squinted at her. “Did I do anything to the body? Believe me, I thought about it, but even I have standards.”

“I hope you’re joking.”

Wendel gave her a look. “Ardis. Please.”

Her heart betrayed her and skipped a beat. God, she had been so afraid she would never hear him say her name again.

“I missed your voice,” she said.

Wendel’s eyebrows tilted into a questioning slant. He may have had his voice back, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.

Finally, he folded his arms and lowered his head.

“Walk with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

She followed him across the slick stones. He halted at the edge of the strait, his eyes narrowed against the wind. The Bosporus spat saltwater onto his boots. He pointed across the water to a lighthouse on an island.

“The Maiden’s Tower,” he said. “Long ago, an oracle foretold that a beloved princess would die by snakebite on her eighteenth birthday. Her father, the sultan, built the tower to keep her safe. When she turned eighteen, the sultan brought her a basket of fruits. And of course the story ends tragically, like all fairytales.”

“All?” Ardis said. “What kind of fairytales have you heard?”

“The old ones they tell to scare children at night.” His smile didn’t touch his eyes. “When the princess ate the first fruit, she startled an asp hiding in the basket. One snakebite was enough. And she died in that very tower.”

She shivered. “How morbid.”

“There’s another tower,” he said.

He curled his arm around her shoulders and turned her to the left. The heat of his body on hers accelerated her heartbeat. She wanted to touch him. Wind buffeted them, a perfect excuse to press against him and shut her eyes.

“Look,” he said, his breath on her neck.

She opened her eyes and followed his finger to a second, bigger island in the Bosporus. This island also had a tower, but it wasn’t a lighthouse. It jutted from a fortress that braved the waves like a stone battleship.

“The Serpent’s Tower,” he said.

“For the asp that killed the princess?” she said.

“So the story goes, though you won’t find any asps there. Only assassins.”

She turned in his arms and looked into his eyes. He tilted his head, and the wind blew his hair sideways across his face.

“The Order of the Asphodel?” she said.

“Yes.”

She smoothed his hair from his face, but she still couldn’t decipher his expression.

“What are you thinking?” she said.

He shrugged and tightened his jaw. She wanted to trace his cheekbones with her fingertip, but she held herself back.

“The Serpent’s Tower is where it ends,” she said.

“No.” He closed the distance between them. “Where it begins.”

She looked down and swallowed hard. If only she could believe him.

“Ardis,” he said, his voice vibrating through her chest. “Trust me.”

“You don’t have a sterling reputation.”

His green eyes glimmered. “Please.”

“God, Wendel,” she said. “I can’t say no to you. Not with you looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You look almost innocent. But I know better.”

“You know, I’m not always a liar.” He broke into a grin that reminded her how beautiful he could be. “That would be a paradox.”

She laughed at his audacity, then kissed him so fast she startled him. His hand slid along the nape of her neck and knotted in her hair. His other hand found her hip and crushed her tighter to him. She moaned against his mouth.

They broke apart to breathe, and she gasped.

“Don’t stop talking,” she said, somewhat incoherently. “Your voice is amazing.”

He arched his eyebrows. “Is it now?”

“Much better than you scribbling down notes. Your handwriting is terrible.”

He laughed. “I don’t need that particular talent.”

“You do have plenty.” She looked into his eyes. “Don’t let that go to your head.”

“It’s going somewhere else entirely.”

A blush blazed across her face. “Could I convince you to take a break from revenge?”

He whispered something in her ear, and she almost didn’t hear him over the wind.

“Always.”

She shivered and arched against him. He brushed his lips over her cheek.

“You have me until nightfall,” he said.

Her stomach tightened. “Why nightfall?”

“It would be foolhardy to sail to the Serpent’s Tower by day.”

“You know,” she murmured against his neck, “it would be foolhardy to leave me.”

“I could never leave you, Ardis.” He grew serious. “Would you stay with me?”

She knew what he was asking. Stay with him when he went to the Serpent’s Tower. Stay with him when he fought the assassins, and the Grandmaster, to the death. Her answer ached inside her heart even before she spoke it.

“Yes.”

~

In the lobby of the Pera Palace Hotel, Ardis admired the luxury of Oriental style married to Art Nouveau flourishes. Porters lugged steamer trunks across the parquet floors for well-heeled Orient Express passengers.

Wendel chatted with the concierge at the desk, then returned a minute later.

“Fantastic!” He smiled. “I’m so close to happily bankrupt right now, it’s amazing.”

Ardis gawked at him. “You spent all your inheritance?”

He held up his hand. “A pitiful fraction of my inheritance. Remember? And I wasn’t planning on taking a cent to my grave.”

“Don’t talk about dying,” she said coolly. “I liked your idea to loot the Order better.”

“Ah,” he said, grinning, “so you remembered the plan.”

Ardis resisted the temptation to swat him. Instead she pried the key to their room out of his hand and started walking. She saw a luxurious tearoom, and an even more luxurious restaurant, but she passed them both.

She wanted to see their room the most.

Ardis glanced at the key in her hand. Room 202. She bounded upstairs, her muscles tight with unspent energy. Wendel followed at a more leisurely pace, or at least he made the climb look effortless with his long legs.

“Why did we bypass the tearoom?” he said. “And the delicious Turkish Delight?”

Wendel’s poker face would have been perfect without the wicked glint in his eyes.

“Sure,” Ardis deadpanned. “Sounds good. You wouldn’t want to miss teatime.”

He tilted his head, clearly thinking of a retort.

“I’ll just be in bed,” she said. “Naked.”

His eyes darkened, and he stepped toward her as if magnetized. “Oh?”

She smiled with a flick of her eyebrows. “I might get a little bored, of course, so I might have to… entertain myself.”

He growled a sigh and backed her against the door, trapping her between his arms.

“Am I invited?” he said.

Ardis ducked under his arm and twisted the key in the lock. She shoved open the door, and he stumbled forward into the room.

She found a switch on the wall and flicked it on.

“Electric lights,” she said. “How modern. Maybe I can read in—”

Wendel tackled her and kissed her hard. They tumbled onto the bed. He made a hoarse satisfied sound in the back of his throat, and she shivered in anticipation. The weight of his body over hers, the heat of his skin, the masculine smell of him. It was almost too much. She shoved him away, her heart racing.

“The door,” she panted.

He lunged and slammed the door, then grimaced like he hadn’t meant to be so loud. She climbed to her feet, the back of her knees pressed into the mattress. When he returned to the bed, she shook her head and smiled.

“Lie down,” she said.

Wendel smirked and looked like he was considering disobedience. He tried to kiss her, but she shoved him onto the bed and climbed onto him. Straddling him like that, she could feel exactly how excited he was.

He looked up at her with dark, dark eyes, his lips parted, expectant.

“Still feel like teatime?” she said.

He rocked his hips so she gasped. “Still feel like reading?”

She grinned. “I don’t have any books.”

He narrowed his eyes and tried to sit, but she shoved down his shoulders. She leaned back and peeled off her jacket and shirt. The instant she was topless, his hands cupped her breasts and caressed them most distractingly.

“You can’t escape now,” she murmured.

“Escape?” He feigned innocence, but his hands squeezed. “Why?”

She laughed. “Don’t make me tie you down.”

His eyes chilled. “No,” he said.

She remembered, then, how he had been chained in the coffin factory. Doubtless he had been punished many more times than that.

“Wendel,” she said, “I forgot. I’m sorry.”

He shrugged as best as he could, lying beneath her on the bed.

She wanted to melt the ice in his eyes. She bent over him and kissed him, softly, her hair curtaining his face. He stayed tense, then relaxed into the kiss. He ran his hands along the curve of her back and sighed against her lips.

“Ardis,” he said. “I wish I…”

She drew back to look at him, and he closed his eyes. Maybe he couldn’t look at her.

“I wish I weren’t so broken,” he whispered.

His words cut her deep, a pain so sharp it was almost sweet. She lay beside him on the bed and rested her head on his chest. Wendel held very still, and Ardis thought he must be trying hard not to feel. His ribs heaved in a sigh.

“We’re all broken,” she said, “one way or another.”

He was silent for a moment. “How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Leave America. Leave it all behind.”

She played with his hair. “Honestly? I’m not sure I did. I can’t stop missing my mother. Sometimes I want nothing more than to go home, to San Francisco, before I was Ardis. But then I remember that isn’t home anymore.”

He closed his hand on hers to stop her fidgeting. “Before you were Ardis?”

“Ardis isn’t my birth name,” she said. “I was Yu Lan. It means Magnolia.”

“Yu Lan,” he repeated.

Her old name sounded odd. She didn’t think she could be that girl again.

“Call me Ardis,” she said.

“Ardis.” He paused. “Are you happy?”

“You make me happy,” she said, without hesitation.

He lifted himself on his elbows, then met her in a kiss. She stole the heat from his skin.

“I can do better,” he murmured.

She shivered at the rasp in his voice. “Then you better survive.”

He laughed, and it was almost a believable laugh.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said.

Wendel lowered his head and traced Ardis’s neck with kisses while she unbuttoned his shirt. She fumbled with the last buttonhole until he simply yanked the shirt over his head. The button pinged off the window.

She laughed. “Be careful. You’re bankrupt.”

“Almost,” he said. “And don’t you love me shirtless?”

She swallowed another laugh. “Could you be any cockier?”

“Easily.”

He slid off the bed, unbuckled his belt, and stripped completely naked. A wholly wicked smirk curved his mouth.

“Is this cocky enough for you?” he said, and he waved at himself.

Laughing, she clapped her hand over her eyes. “That’s it. You killed the romance.”

He didn’t seem to care. He hooked his fingers into her trousers, and she tilted her hips upward to help him undress her. She shivered in the cool air. He found a preventive in his coat, and her pulse rushed in her ears.

When he climbed over her on the bed, he kissed her neck, but went no further.

“Ardis,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m all yours.”