by Karen Kincy
Ardis forced herself to cut her fish and take a bite. She had to swallow hard. She swigged some wine to fortify her nerves.
“God, Wendel,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”
He slid the paper to himself, then back to her. I have no choice.
“Of course you have a choice!”
The words exploded from Ardis, and nearby diners stared at them. She sucked in air and lowered her voice to a murmur.
“You can always walk away, Wendel. You always have that choice.”
The intensity in his eyes fragmented into glittering. He lowered his head. Mechanically, he cut his fish into bites. Ardis couldn’t bear to look at him. Her throat aching, she forced herself to eat, but she didn’t taste a thing.
Wendel finished dinner first, and excused himself with a nod.
She let him go, then let herself breathe. Her eyes blurred. She dabbed them quickly with a napkin, before the waiter returned, then faked a smile.
“Would that be all, ma’am?” said the waiter.
“No,” she said. “I’m not done yet.”
~
Ardis sat alone on the promenade deck for a long time. She watched the world drift away beneath her until her thoughts simmered down. When she climbed to her feet, she suddenly felt weary, her boots like lead.
She made her way to their cabin and opened the door without knocking.
Wendel lay in the bottom berth, his arms curled around a tangle of blankets. He had fallen asleep with the electric light on, and the yellow glow illuminated his face. Sweat glistened on his forehead despite the coldness of the cabin. She hesitated, not wanting to wake him, though she also wanted to sleep.
His hands clenched around fistfuls of blanket, and he jerked like someone had hit him.
Ardis tensed. Was he having a nightmare?
He doubled over, grinding his teeth, and shuddered. She bent over him and shook his arm. He flinched, but didn’t wake up.
“Wendel,” she said.
At the sound of her voice, his eyes snapped open.
He lunged from the berth and grabbed her by the arm, driving her against the wall. Her back slapped the paneling. The shock of it flooded her blood with adrenaline, and she had to tell herself not to fight back, he wasn’t awake yet—
Then she saw the black dagger in his hand. He held it inches from her cheek.
“Wendel!” she said. “Wake up!”
He was breathing hard, his hand bruising her arm. Then, suddenly, he let her go and staggered back. Awareness sharpened his eyes.
“You were having a nightmare,” she said, her heartbeat still galloping.
Wendel dropped the dagger. It fell with a dull thud on the carpet. He looked at her, and then he took her by the arms with cautious gentleness. Ardis winced when he touched the bruises from his fingers.
“I shouldn’t have woken you,” she whispered.
Wendel’s face crumpled into what could only be described as anguish, and he bowed his head, his hands still on her arms. He released her and backed away, stumbling against the berth, sinking to his knees on the floor.
His shoulders heaved, and he dug his knuckles into his temples.
Barely breathing, she backed toward the door. He lifted his head at the sound of her footsteps. He looked into her eyes, for no more than an instant, and looked away. But not before she saw the glittering of his tears.
She couldn’t leave him there, looking so lost and broken.
Ardis dropped beside Wendel and dragged him into her arms. He buried his face against her shoulder, shaking, his ragged breaths muffled against her. She held him close, stroking her hands over the scars on his back, knowing now that his scars ran much deeper. She sensed his suffocating fear, and she finally understood that he could never truly escape the Order. Not even by returning to face them.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, even though it was a lie. “It’s okay.”
His tears wet her shirt. He withdrew, blinking, and ran his thumbnails over his eyelashes.
“Wendel,” she said, but she didn’t know what else to say.
He put on a brave face, though he couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes. He climbed to his feet and bent over the nightstand. His pen scratched across the paper, and she peered over his shoulder to read what he had written.
I don’t want to go.
Her throat constricted so that she almost couldn’t speak. “Then don’t.”
His eyebrows descended, and he shook his head.
“We can get off at the next stop and take a train to Switzerland. They don’t want anything to do with this war. We can find some little cottage in the mountains and learn how to make cheese.” She laughed. “Actually, I’m pretty bad at cooking. We might have to raise cows, or do whatever else it is the Swiss do.”
He stared sideways at her, incredulous, then broke into a smile.
Chocolate, he wrote. I like Swiss chocolate better than Swiss cheese.
She laughed again. “I’m not sure I trust your skills in the kitchen. Princes aren’t exactly known for cooking. Neither are necromancers.”
His smile faded. I can’t— He crossed it out. I would love more than anything to run away with you. To Switzerland or America or anywhere else. He tapped the nib of the pen on the paper. But the Order will hunt me down.
She breathed in through her nose. “I know.”
Wendel sank onto the bottom berth and rested his head in his hands. They both stared at the black dagger on the floor. Then he ducked for the dagger, yanked open the nightstand drawer, and locked the blade inside.
“I’m still afraid of your nightmares,” she whispered.
He stared at the paper. Forgive me.
Ardis crossed her arms and rubbed the bruises there. Wendel saw her do this, and he looked tormented by what he had done.
Please don’t touch me when I’m sleeping, he wrote. I’m not myself.
“I won’t,” she said.
He watched her as she kicked off her boots and stripped to her underclothes. She climbed into the top berth and lay down, her pulse throbbing in her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to feel so sick with fear.
He touched her gently on her wrist. She opened her eyes.
Wendel leaned across her berth and kissed her on the cheek. She hooked her hand behind his neck and kissed him on the lips, harder, until he melted against her. She kissed him with all of her concern and forgiveness.
“There,” she said huskily. “That’s more like it.”
He looked at her with a crooked smile, then switched off the light.
“Good night,” she whispered.
After counting a hundred heartbeats, she heard his breathing settle into a gentle rhythm. Only then did she sleep.
~
When Ardis woke, she had no sense of time. The zeppelin soared so soundlessly that she didn’t know if they were moving or moored at a faraway city. She listened for Wendel’s breathing, but she heard nothing.
She flicked on the light. His berth was empty, the blankets neatly folded.
Ardis swallowed, her mouth dry, and decided to find a drink before looking for Wendel. She dressed, left the cabin, and discovered it was morning. The night’s chill still lingered. On the promenade deck, she peered through the tilted windows. Sunlight gilded a carpet of fields and tufted trees. They flew not more than five hundred feet above the red-tiled roof of a farmhouse, and children chased the zeppelin’s shadow.
They had to be flying over Turkey already.
She walked to the dining room and found Wendel standing by the windows, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Good morning,” she said.
Wendel looked over his shoulder. Sleep had smoothed much of the worry from his face. Ardis stood beside him, and he tugged her into the crook of his arm. She leaned against his chest and heard his steady heartbeat.
A city shimmered in the haze of distance. She could even see the spires of the mosque Hagia Sophia, soaring heavenward, which
she had once only imagined from the gray crosshatchings of an engraving in a book.
“Constantinople,” she said.
They wandered through the Grand Bazaar of Constantinople. Wendel had bought a black cloak, and he wore it with the hood shadowing his face. Ardis tugged the scarf straight over her hair and clutched a golden Ottoman lira in her hand. The Grand Bazaar’s covered streets no doubt swarmed with pickpockets.
The kaleidoscope of sights dazzled her eyes. On her left, men praised rich Turkish rugs. On her right, glowing glass lamps like fairytale baubles hung as high as the vaulted ceilings. Exotic spices perfumed the air—sandalwood, ginger, nutmegs, cinnamon. She saw opium hawked beside dates and pistachios. A woman with birdlike eyes beckoned her with toy scarab beetles that flicked open their iridescent shells and flew on mechanical wings. Ardis couldn’t tell where the magic ended and the clockwork began.
Wendel lingered at the edge of the street, waiting, and she hurried to meet him.
“I wish we had more time,” Ardis said. “I would love to get lost here.”
He smiled wistfully, and she wondered if he had before.
She followed him down a street that echoed with the hammerings of coppersmiths. They turned the corner and came upon a newsstand. Wendel bought a Turkish newspaper and Ardis wondered just how many languages he understood. He read the newspaper with narrowed eyes, then tapped the page with his finger.
She recognized one word: Hieronymus.
“His obituary?” she said.
Wendel nodded and tapped his wrist where a watch would be. Ardis realized he meant that they didn’t have much time. They darted out from the Grand Bazaar and into the cold. Wendel flagged down a hackney carriage and showed the driver the obituary. The driver replied in Turkish, then waved them inside.
They rattled through the crowded streets of Constantinople. Wind corrugated the steely waters of the Bosporus. Ardis glimpsed many faces from faraway lands. She wondered if even she might blend into this city’s crowds.
The hackney stopped outside a small church with a stark white façade. Wendel leapt from the carriage, helped Ardis to the street, and tossed the driver a coin. Then he flipped back the hood of his cloak and strode inside.
The velvety smoke of frankincense sweetened the gloom. At the far end of the nave, an intricate gilded screen glimmered by candlelight and dwarfed a simple wooden casket. Mourners shuffled toward the casket in a procession.
Wendel held his finger to his lips and slipped into the procession. Ardis followed in his footsteps, her heart racing, and prayed that nobody would recognize them. She tugged her scarf closer over her hair and bowed her head. They inched closer, until only a gray-haired woman stood between them and the casket.
Hieronymus lay in eternal sleep. But soon he would be woken.
The gray-haired woman bent over the casket, weeping, and kissed a cross placed on Hieronymus’s chest. His widow? She walked away from the casket and was comforted by others. Ardis’s chest tightened, and she backed out of the procession. No one questioned her behavior. Perhaps they mistook it for grief.
Wendel strode to the casket and bent over the body as if paying his respects.
Hieronymus sat upright.
His widow glanced back, looked into his dead eyes, and collapsed in a faint. Ardis caught her before she hit the floor, then handed her to a young man who reached out to help. Screams and gasps punctuated the silence.
One word echoed in the church. “Necromancer!”
And Ardis saw Wendel as they saw him—a sinister man cloaked in black, his pale face devoid of emotion. Then, strangely, he offered his dagger to the corpse. Hieronymus seized the dagger and grabbed Wendel by the jaw. He shoved Wendel’s head back, yanked open his mouth, and carved an X across his tongue.
Ardis scarcely breathed. It looked like he was crossing out the curse.
Wendel broke away from Hieronymus, doubled over, and spat what looked like black ink onto the carpet. The corpse fell back down in the casket. Wendel wiped his mouth on his sleeve, straightened, and raked his hair from his eyes with a shaking hand. He took back his dagger and turned toward the horrified crowd.
“You can bury the body now,” he said, his voice unbelievably hoarse.
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 th
e 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.”