Storms of Lazarus (Shadows of Asphodel, Book 2) (10 page)

“You have been an idiot this time,” Ardis said.

“Agreed,” Wendel said.

The officer hauled Wendel to the dining room and dumped him in a chair. Wendel leaned back and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Do you need medical assistance, sir?” the officer said gruffly.

Wendel nodded, and blood gushed from his nose. He cursed, grabbed a napkin, and wadded it under his nose.

“Please,” Wendel said.

He sounded so miserable Ardis couldn’t be angry at him. She nudged a chair closer and sat. The officer left without ceremony.

“How did you walk into a wall?” Ardis said.

“I didn’t,” Wendel said. “I jumped off the ladder and the wall was there.”

She sighed. “Stay away from schnapps.”

“I’m not that drunk.”

“Nice try.”

They sat in silence. Ardis inspected the blood staining Wendel’s knuckles.

“Wendel?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“Yes.”

Wendel didn’t even scoff. Ardis considered the truth-telling properties of alcohol.

“Have you been sleeping?” she said.

He paused. “No.”

“At all?”

Wendel met her gaze. Pain glittered in his eyes, perhaps from his wound, perhaps from something that cut much deeper.

“I can’t sleep,” he said. “I can’t stop dreaming of it, Ardis.”

“Of what?”

“Of falling.”

And she knew he meant dying. Hurt burned in her throat like an ember.

“What do you remember?” she whispered.

Wendel laughed, and blood spilled from his nose. He dabbed himself with the napkin.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m making this conversation gratuitously gory. Though I suppose a little blood doesn’t bother you.”

Ardis inhaled. “Blood isn’t what scares me.”

“I’m an idiot.” Wendel met her gaze. “I never meant to hurt you.”

She stared at the scars on her palms and tried to remember the pain of the broken glass. She barely could. The pain of Wendel’s death eclipsed everything else. He reached across and touched her wrist with his fingertips.

“Ardis,” he said. “I’m alive. I’m here.”

She blinked away the threat of tears. “Please don’t joke about dying.”

“I won’t.”

The door to the dining room swung open. A woman swept inside hauling a black bag. She wore an immaculately white apron over a gingham dress. She scrutinized Wendel through silver-rimmed spectacles.

“What happened?” the woman said.

“Wendel walked into a wall,” Ardis said. “Drunkenly.”

The woman sniffed. “I smell the alcohol.”

Wendel straightened in his seat and bunched his eyebrows in a pitiful expression. He lowered the napkin from his nose.

“Please tell me my nose isn’t broken,” he said.

The woman arched an eyebrow. “It could be.”

Wendel groaned. “Not my face. I have scars on almost every square centimeter of my body, but not my beautiful face.”

Ardis slapped her hand to her forehead. “God, Wendel.”

“Nurse,” Wendel said. “Can you save my nose?”

The woman dropped her bag on the table and unlocked the clasp.

“I’m a doctor, not a nurse,” she said. “And you should be glad for your good fortune that I was travelling aboard this airship.”

Wendel’s eyebrows shot skyward. “A doctor!”

“Dr. Ursula Eisen. And don’t move.”

The doctor lowered Wendel’s hand. She examined his nose, prodding it gently with her fingers, and he flinched.

“Your nose isn’t broken,” Ursula said.

“Oh, thank God,” Wendel said.

“Bend over.”

“And bleed on the floor?”

“You don’t want blood to travel down the nose to the stomach. It can cause gastrointestinal upset and vomiting.”

Wendel bent over. He held the napkin under his nose.

“Now I feel sick,” he said.

“Likely the alcohol,” Ursula said. “Avoid drinking for several days.”

Wendel groaned. Blood dripped from his nose and pattered onto the napkin.

“Isn’t this punishment enough?” he said.

Ardis squeezed Wendel’s shoulder. Her stomach hurt just looking at him.

“Can’t you give him something for the pain?” she said.

“Laudanum,” Ursula said.

Wendel brightened. “Yes, please.”

Ursula rummaged in her doctor’s bag and withdrew a tiny green bottle marked with the words
LAUDANUM
and
POISON
.

“Bring me a glass of water,” Ursula said.

Ardis fetched a glass and a pitcher from a nearby table. Ursula poured water to the halfway mark, then unscrewed the laudanum and squeezed drops into the glass. The dark syrup swirled and dissolved in the water.

“Take this,” Ursula said.

Wendel knocked back the dose of laudanum. He clanked the glass on the table and twisted his face in a grimace.

“Laudanum and blood taste quite repulsive together,” Wendel said hoarsely.

“The nosebleed should resolve soon,” Ursula said. “You should sleep.”

Wendel’s shoulders stiffened as he stared into the empty glass.

Ardis swallowed. “He hasn’t been sleeping.”

When Ursula looked to Ardis, her spectacles flashed in the sunlight.

“Insomnia?” Ursula said. “For how long?”

“I don’t know,” Ardis said.

Wendel folded the bloodstained napkin neatly on his knee.

“Days,” he said.

“Why?” said the doctor.

Wendel narrowed his eyes and said nothing. Ardis didn’t know how to help him if he wouldn’t help himself.

“Nightmares,” Ardis said.

Ursula stared at Wendel for a long moment.

“Laudanum will help,” she said. “Return to me if he worsens.”

The doctor sterilized her hands with alcohol, returned the laudanum to its place, and locked the clasp on her doctor’s bag.

“Thank you,” Ardis said.

“Don’t thank me,” Ursula said. “It’s my duty.”

Ardis thought she saw a flicker of a smile before the doctor left the room.

“Impressive bedside manner,” Wendel said.

He climbed to his feet, still clutching the napkin to his nose, though the bleeding had slowed. He looked pale, and Ardis hoped the laudanum would start working soon. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist.

“Wendel,” she said. “Let’s wash that blood off you.”

He smirked. “Before I’m accused of murder.”

Ardis walked with Wendel to the bathroom, where she helped him by cleaning his face with a wet washcloth. He winced as she touched his nose, but made no complaint. He looked everywhere but her eyes.

“It stopped bleeding,” Ardis said.

“Finally,” Wendel said.

“Come along.” She washed and dried her hands. “Bed.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “I love it when you say that.”

She sighed. He was flirtatious even while drunk, wounded, and dosed with laudanum.

“You aren’t in any shape for that,” she said.

Wendel allowed her to escort him from the bathroom to the cabin. He sprawled on the berth and closed his eyes.

“Feeling a bit better,” he murmured. “I love laudanum.”

This hardly surprised Ardis. Wendel had scars from so many wounds.

“Try to sleep,” she said.

“I will,” he said.

She kissed him on his forehead. “I’m worried about you.”

He made a quiet murmur in his throat, but nothing articulate. When she drew back, his fingers closed around her hand.

“Ardis,” Wendel said. “I remember…”

She waited for him to speak. His hand slipped from hers.

“I remember everything,” he whispered.

She stared at him, her heart pounding. His breathing slowed to the gentle rhythm of sleep, and she didn’t want to wake him.

Not even to hear the truth.

~

As Ardis walked down the corridor by the cabins, a sharp ache panged where she had been stung. She clutched her arm. The jagged pain throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Anxiety crawled like ants in her stomach.

Was Wendel right? Was this the poison?

Damn it, and the doctor had left only minutes before.

Ardis broke into a run and rounded the corner. She almost collided with a crewman, who apologized and backed away.

“Excuse me,” Ardis said. “I need the doctor.”

“Right this way.”

The crewman backtracked and brought her to a cabin. Still clutching her arm, Ardis rapped on the door. Ursula answered it right away. The doctor adjusted her spectacles, her lips pursed, and stared at Ardis.

“Dr. Eisen,” Ardis said. “Can you take a look at this?”

Her arm panged with an even sharper stab of pain, and she gritted her teeth.

“What happened to your arm?” Ursula said.

“A clockwork wasp stung me.”

Ursula backed away. “Come in and sit down.”

Ardis hesitated, since she didn’t want to intrude, but the steely look in Ursula’s eyes hardly invited argument. Ardis ducked into the cabin and dropped onto the berth. She tightened her fingers around the sting.

“It didn’t hurt like this until a minute or two ago,” she said.

“Let me look,” Ursula said.

Ardis lifted her fingers. Ursula rubbed her thumb over the tender skin, then pressed hard against the bump. A brilliant shard of pain sliced through Ardis. She gasped, her eyes watering, and yanked her arm away.

“This may hurt,” Ursula said. “Hold still.”

It already hurt, but Ardis nodded and braced herself.

Ursula unlocked her bag and reached inside. Steel flashed in her hand. A scalpel. Ardis sucked her breath through her teeth. Ursula poured alcohol onto a cloth and dabbed the sting, then reached for the scalpel.

“What is that for?” Ardis said.

“There’s something under your skin,” Ursula said, “that doesn’t belong there.”

“God, are you serious?”

“Yes.” Ursula angled the scalpel over Ardis’s arm. “Ready?”

Ardis swallowed hard. Blood rarely turned her stomach, but she preferred the steel of a sword to the steel of a scalpel.

“Do it,” Ardis said.

Ursula lowered the blade, her eyes sharp with concentration. She sliced into the inflamed skin and cut a tiny incision less than an inch long. Ursula turned away, bent over her bag, and returned with forceps.

“I almost have it,” Ursula said.

Queasy, Ardis wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was.

Ursula reached into the incision with the forceps and picked out a miniscule metal worm. It wriggled against the forceps, gears whirring inside its steel segments. The doctor dropped the worm into a glass vial.

“God.” Ardis pressed her hand to her mouth. “What is that?”

Ursula held an eye loupe to her glasses and inspected the worm. She tilted the vial, and the creature rolled with a rattle.

“It appears to be a clockwork larva,” Ursula said.

Ardis shuddered. “That’s repulsive.”

“I see writing carved onto the larva. Possibly Russian.”

“I don’t suppose you can read Russian?”

Ursula lowered the loupe. Unmistakable curiosity glinted in her gray eyes.

“No,” she said. “But I believe the archmage may know more. You should bring the larva to him for further examination.”

Ursula bandaged Ardis’s arm with gauze. The pain from the sting had faded.

“Thank you, doctor.” Ardis hopped off the berth. “I feel better without that worm.”

Ursula met her gaze. “Don’t speak too soon. I would rather know the purpose of the larva before making a prognosis.”

That was less than reassuring.

Ursula stoppered the vial. “Take this to the archmage and report back.”

Ardis pocketed the vial. The larva clinked against the glass. With a nod goodbye, she left the doctor and looked for Konstantin. She discovered the archmage walking downstairs, and she hurried to match his long stride.

“Konstantin,” she said.

“Care to join me for lunch, Ardis?” He smiled absently. “I’m venturing to the mess hall.”

Ardis wasn’t sure the crew would be comfortable eating with the archmage. But Konstantin leapt off the last step and turned the corner. She sighed and followed him. When they stepped into the mess hall, they interrupted a conversation between crewmates. Himmel shoved his chair from the table and saluted.

“Archmage Konstantin,” the captain said.

The rest of the crewmates realized who stood in the doorway, and all of them leapt to their feet with a scraping of chairs.

Konstantin’s cheeks reddened. “Please, sit down. This is terribly embarrassing.”

A few of the youngest crewmen shared glances. Perhaps they expected the archmage to be more strict with formalities.

Himmel furrowed his brow. “Did you have something to say, sir?”

Konstantin pinched the bridge of his nose. His ears looked scarlet.

“I thought we might join you for lunch,” he said. “Considering how empty the dining room would be above deck.”

“Very well, sir,” Himmel said. “You can be my right-hand man.”

Himmel dragged two more chairs to the table. Konstantin perched on the chair to the captain’s right. Ardis took the last seat and stared at her napkin. After the captain sat again, his crew dropped back into their chairs.

“Eat,” Himmel said. “That’s an order.”

He winked, which didn’t help Konstantin’s blush in the slightest.

Ardis fingered the vial in her pocket. Lunch didn’t seem like the best time to whip out a clockwork larva. But she had lost her appetite. The others ate rye bread, cheese, cold meats, and apples from the last autumn. She had dined alone for years, always the stranger in the corner, and she didn’t know how to join the chatter of conversation. Konstantin seemed just as tongue-tied while Himmel talked about the weather.

“On a winter day like this,” Himmel said, “the sun can be an advantage.”

Konstantin ruffled his curls. “How so?”

“When things heat up, our lifting power increases.”

“Ah! I know exactly what you mean. Elementary physics.”

Ardis reached halfway to a slice of cheese, then stopped, her stomach still unsettled. She nudged Konstantin’s elbow.

“Yes?” he said.

“Look at this,” she whispered.

Ardis hid the vial in a napkin and slid it to Konstantin. He unwrapped it and squinted. Then his eyes widened.

“Where did this come from?” he said softly.