by Karen Kincy
He laughed. “You’re the one sleeping with a corpse.”
Behind her, Konstantin grunted. Thorsten’s gaze snapped toward the sound. She looked over her shoulder just as Wendel dragged Konstantin to his feet. The shadows of Amarant churned like a thundercloud, revealing glimpses of them both, before the necromancer and the once archmage stepped into total darkness.
She looked back–a second too late.
Thorsten lunged, with deadly grace, his dagger pointed at her neck. She raised her sword to block him, but he pivoted and the blade sliced the flesh of her forearm. The dagger bit bone. She felt nothing, though the pain would follow.
Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the dagger’s pommel with her left hand.
“Too easy,” Thorsten said, before he kicked her in the knee.
Ardis fell sideways, losing the dagger, and hit the floor with her shoulder. Her knee didn’t hurt, either, but it wobbled when she jumped to her feet. Stumbling, she retreated from Thorsten, holding him at bay with her sword.
Thorsten eyed her blood on his blade. “Why won’t he stay dead?”
“Who?” She decided to play dumb.
“The necromancers,” he said, following her at a stroll.
In the space between words, she listened for Wendel or Konstantin, and heard footsteps retreating down the hallway.
“The brothers?” she lied.
She backed toward the door, her knee already stiffening.
“There was only one Wendel,” Thorsten said. “His family feared him. Asked me to test his sister and his little brother.”
“What?” She couldn’t think of a clever reply.
“Only Wendel could wield Amarant.”
A necromancer’s dagger. Created when Wendel’s family sent him to Constantinople. God, he had been a boy of eleven.
“And now,” Thorsten said, “there are two daggers.”
Pain started to cut through her adrenaline. Her arm throbbed with every heartbeat. Blood trickled down her wrist, sizzling on Chun Yi, the sword burning brighter. Growing stronger. She lowered her arm, letting the blood flow.
“You talk too much,” Ardis said. “Did it take you that long to figure it out?”
Thorsten lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Your brain contains knowledge that I want, and I can’t gouge it from your skull.”
She curled her lip. “No wonder you wanted Wendel interrogating the dead.”
“If only he cooperated. I wouldn’t have to damage him so much.”
Walking backward, her shoulder hit the wall. She glanced at the door. Too far to her left.
Thorsten’s dagger flashed in her peripheral vision.
But she was quicker. She ducked and hit his wrist with the pommel of her sword, knocking his arm back, before she swung at his neck. He dropped before she could decapitate him, and she lunged for the doorway.
Thorsten caught her by the ankle and yanked her sprawling.
When she kicked him in the face, her boot met his nose with a satisfying crunch. She dug her sword into the floorboards and levered herself onto her feet. He slashed at her face while reaching left-handed for her sword.
She countered by twisting away and thrusting Chun Yi into his shoulder.
Flames burned blue along the steel. Thorsten grunted and jerked back. Her sword yearned to slit his throat and let his veins flow.
Ardis blinked. Trying to kill him now would end with her dead.
Before he retaliated, she whirled from the room, the door banging against the wall, and took the hallway at a dead sprint. Chun Yi spat sparks behind her as she ran. Gasping, she sheathed her sword and thundered downstairs.
In the lobby, she crashed into Wendel. He caught her by her wounded arm.
She sucked in a breath. “Go.”
“What–?”
“Go!”
They burst from the abandoned hotel and into the blinding white daylight. Ardis didn’t stop running until the agony in her knee forced her to limp. Blood soaked her sleeve. Wendel tugged her to a halt, his eyes searching her face.
Her lungs ached in the cold. “Is Konstantin safe?”
“Yes.” He touched her wrist. “You’re shaking.”
Was she? Uncontrollably, now that she noticed.
Wendel met her gaze. “Can you walk?”
“Somewhat.” She hobbled a few paces, wincing.
He hooked his arm under her shoulder. “Lean on me.”
When she let him take some of her weight, the pain retreated enough for her to walk. Together, they crossed the street.
“This way,” Wendel said.
He brought her to a gray automobile idling in an alley. Konstantin leaned against the hood, his eye swollen shut by bruises.
Wendel opened the driver’s door. “Can you drive, archmage?”
Konstantin grimaced. “I can’t promise depth perception.”
“Good enough.” Wendel sat shotgun. “Ardis, get in.”
She slumped in the back seat, clutching her arm to slow the bleeding. “Whose car?”
“Who knows,” Wendel said.
“We liberated the vehicle.” Konstantin shifted into reverse. “What happened?”
“Thorsten tried to kill me,” she said. “I stabbed him in the shoulder. And kicked him in the face. Hope I broke his nose.”
“Me, too.”
Wendel swore under his breath. “You should have left Thorsten to me.”
“Nobody died, did they?”
“This time.”
~
Freezing rain rattled from the sky as Konstantin parked outside the Hotel am Meer. When Ardis stepped from the auto, pain ripped through her knee. She gasped and clung to the door. Darkness edged her vision.
Wendel ran to her. “Hold on.”
He lifted her into his arms, where she hooked her hands behind his neck. He carried her all the way to their hotel room.
Konstantin followed them. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know,” Wendel said.
After he lowered Ardis onto the bed, she propped herself on her elbows. Worms of nausea wriggled in her stomach.
“I think I need stitches,” she said.
Konstantin glanced at her with his good eye. “There’s always technomancy.”
She swallowed hard. “Maybe later.”
“Lie down,” Wendel said.
He peeled her sleeve from her skin, the cloth stiff with blood, and inspected the gash. Stars danced across her eyesight.
“Damn,” he said. “You’re still bleeding.”
Konstantin handed him a towel. “Put pressure on the wound.”
When Wendel clamped the towel against her arm, she forced herself to breathe slowly. Now wasn’t the time to pass out.
“Thank you for saving me,” Konstantin said.
“You’re welcome, archmage.” Wendel managed a trace of sarcasm. “I’m impressed by the way you handled his interrogation.”
“I doubt I could have handled it for much longer.”
“Rest assured,” Wendel murmured, “I will kill him.”
Ardis stared at the necromancer, at years of frustration and bitterness tensing his body, and she let out her breath in a sigh.
“No,” she said.
He looked sideways at her, his pale green eyes glimmering. “Pardon?”
“You won’t.”
Wendel held her gaze for a long moment, but he remained wordless. Konstantin walked to the bathroom; through the doorway, she could see him washing his face, gingerly, avoiding the bruises purpling his cheekbones.
“You want to kill Thorsten yourself,” she said. “With your bare hands, if necessary.”
“And?” Wendel spoke in a voice like silk and ice.
“That’s why you won’t win.”
“Why?”
“Thorsten knows exactly what you want, and what you will do to get it.”
He curled his lip. “What do you want me to do? Must I change my mind, and decide to forgive the Grandmaster?”
“Hell, no.” She grimaced. “Wendel, he’s been toying with you like a cat with its prey.”
“But–”
“Both of us. If I had stayed another minute in that fight, he would have killed me.” Her wounds ached at the memory.
“It should have been me.” His words sounded raw. “I should have fought him.”
“Shadows and daggers won’t save us.”
Wendel looked away, working his jaw as if gnashing his teeth. “I disagree.”
“You’re wrong.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “I understand Thorsten just as well as he understands me. This was my reality for over a decade.”
“I know, but–”
“Let me do this. If not for all the ways he hurt you, then for all the nights I lay awake as a boy, wondering why he did this to me.”
She forced herself not to break their gaze, though the glittering in his eyes made it hard.
“Wendel,” she said, “revenge will not save you.”
“Won’t it?” His lips twisted in a smile. “This goes beyond revenge. This has been my one and only goal in life for a decade. With Thorsten gone, he will never force me to touch the dead again. Never use me for my necromancy.”
She inhaled past the knot in her throat. “You must be angry.”
“Anger is insufficient.”
“Either way, you can’t do this alone.”
He arched an eyebrow. “There are two of me.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She raised her voice. “Konstantin?”
He stepped from the bathroom, dabbing at his face with a towel. “Yes?”
“We need your help.”
“With what?”
“Thorsten.”
The towel fell before hanging limply in his hand. “I don’t understand.”
She locked gazes with him. “Believe me, you will.”
~
The Peregrine soared through the night sky over Kiel, on a mission to test navigation, though that disguised their true objective.
At the nose of the zeppelin, Ardis braced herself on the deck. The moon loomed over the city like a silver coin untarnished by clouds. Glacial wind stole her warmth and stung her eyes. Her arm and knee ached with the memory of old pain, even though Konstantin had healed her with temporal magic only an hour ago.
“Will anyone know?” she said. “Afterward?”
Konstantin tugged the scarf from his mouth. “Not unless they’re an archmage.”
Bruises still darkened his face, since he couldn’t heal himself. He knelt on the deck and unlatched a suitcase. Moonlight gleamed on the intricate brass knobs and glass dials of the technomancy apparatus contained within.
Himmel strode onto the deck. “We’re in position.”
“Thank you,” Konstantin said. “Everyone, stand back.”
“We are,” Wendel II said.
Both Wendels leaned on the railing, arms crossed, their postures mirrored. Neither one of them liked this plan, but they didn’t have a better one.
“Are you up for this?” Himmel glanced at Konstantin’s bruises.
“While I appreciate your concern, Theodore, I could do technomancy in my sleep.”
Himmel’s mustache twitched. “Duly noted.”
Konstantin tightened the buckles on his archmage’s gauntlets. “Time to undo my work.”
He flicked the switch on the apparatus, which produced a bone-deep hum. A bolt of stray magic crackled between his armored fingers. He cupped his hands, sparking more electricity, before he flung them skyward.
Violet-white lightning arced from Konstantin’s fingertips. He held steady, focusing the magic to a single point in the sky. The air around him began to glow indigo. He stared, unblinking, his face furrowed with intensity.
“No.” He clapped his hands together and killed the magic. “Wrong frequency.”
Ardis shook her head, her ears buzzing in the silence. “What does that mean?”
“My calculations were wrong.” With his wrist, he wiped sweat from his brow. “Previously, I dealt with frequencies designed to harmonize with the existing network. We need to negate the curse, not strengthen it.”
“Then do it,” Wendel I said.
Konstantin glared at him. “Technomancy isn’t as simple as touching a corpse.”
Wendel II sneered. “I hate artificial magic.”
“Gentlemen,” Himmel said, stepping between them. “Remember why we’re here.”
Konstantin bent over the suitcase and adjusted the knobs on the apparatus. “There’s only one thing to do,” he muttered.
“What?” Wendel I said. “Guess?”
“Precisely.”
When Konstantin summoned the lightning, the violet-white shifted to another hue. Not purplish, this time, but the nocturnal green of glowworms. He raised his hands to the darkness, narrowing his eyes, and let the magic fly.
The sky began to crack. White lines spiderwebbed across the face of the moon.
“Almost,” Konstantin said, his words nearly lost in the noise.
Shards of magic peeled away from the sky, falling, shimmering into embers that faded before they ever hit the ground.
He pressed his palms together; the lightning died. He turned off the apparatus.
Wendel I blinked several times. “Was that it? That little fireworks show?”
“Hopefully everyone in Kiel didn’t watch,” Wendel II muttered.
Ardis peered at the sky, which looked mundane once more, and sucked in a lungful of air with the scent of a thunderstorm.
Konstantin concentrated on unbuckling his gauntlets. “Kiel is no longer protected.”
She glanced at him. “Then–?”
“The Hex has been broken.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Wendel I had been digging for an eternity. Breathing hard, he stopped and leaned against the shovel. Fog shrouded the outskirts of the cemetery, silvered by moonlight, transfiguring tombstones into crooked teeth.
Ardis knelt behind a mausoleum, her knuckles pressed against the cold wet grass.
“I hope this works,” she murmured.
Wendel II smiled grimly at her side. “My necromancy has always fascinated Thorsten.”
Grave dirt streaked his cheekbone; he had been the one digging for the last eternity. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Do you have blisters,” she said, “or are you nervous?”
His gaze dropped to his fingers. “Both.”
Wendel I dug even deeper, tossing earth over his shoulder. Ardis waited for the clunk of a shovel blade on a coffin, though she knew he had chosen an unmarked plot at random. It didn’t matter what he unearthed tonight.
“How many graves will we have to dig?” she whispered.
“As many as it takes,” Wendel II said, his eyes bright in the moonlight.
She leaned against the granite of the mausoleum, her hand reaching halfway to her jacket pocket, but she stopped herself.
Not yet.
His breath clouding the air, Wendel I hopped out of the grave. He glanced toward the mausoleum before tossing aside the shovel.
“Keep digging,” Wendel II whispered, though his doppelgänger couldn’t hear him.
The hairs along her arms stood at attention. Ardis scanned the cemetery, searching the cool light and inky shadows. Old trees clawed at the sky with twisted branches; the pruned topiaries lost their true shapes at night.
From the fog, a man strode with a lantern. A gravekeeper?
The muscles in her legs tensed. Moonlight gleamed on the man’s pale hair. Thorsten Magnusson, making no attempt to disguise himself.
Wendel II drew the black dagger before seizing her hand. Shadows cloaked them both.
“Tell me when,” he whispered.
She squeezed his hand by way of answer.
By the grave, Wendel I grabbed the shovel with feigned nonchalance. “Thorsten.”
The Grandmaster dropped the lantern several paces away. “What are
you doing?”
“Digging your grave.”
Ardis slid her hand into her pocket and touched gunmetal. She pulled out the pistol and hefted the reassuring weight, then opened the chamber, making sure it was loaded. It had been far too long since she had last fired a bullet.
Thorsten spat on the dirt. “How many times do I have to kill you?”
Leaning against the shovel, Wendel I shrugged. “Shall we find out?”
“Closer,” Ardis whispered, barely moving her lips.
Wendel II clenched her hand. Together, they crept out from behind the mausoleum. She placed every footstep with precision.
She wanted to fire only one shot.
“You aren’t alone,” Thorsten said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
Wendel I lifted his shovel. “Afraid?”
“Fear means nothing to me.”
Ardis dragged Wendel II even closer, borrowing strength from his grip, borrowing secrecy from the shadows of his dagger.
“I was afraid of you when I first met you,” Wendel I said.
Thorsten glanced into the grave between them. “How pathetic you were. Tears streaming down your face. Wouldn’t stop sniveling for days.”
“Not until you hit me.”
A dead leaf rustled under her foot–she halted, Wendel II clenching her hand.
Thorsten flipped a dagger from his sleeve. “You deserved everything.”
She clicked the safety and braced the pistol in both hands, but she was still trembling too much. Breathe. She had to breathe.
Wendel I curled his lip. “You deserve to die.”
He leapt over the grave, shovel held high, and swung the dirt-encrusted blade. Thorsten dropped to his knees. Missing, Wendel stumbled into a run, carried by his own momentum. Thorsten lunged to his feet in pursuit.
This wasn’t part of the plan.
Wendel II wouldn’t let go of her hand, her bones aching under his grip. She pried his fingers away and let the shadows fade.
No more fucking subtlety.
“Thorsten!” she shouted.
He whirled in her direction. She sighted down the barrel, slid her finger to the trigger–
“Ardis,” he said, “you–”
She fired.
The bullet hit Thorsten between the eyes. He dropped to the dirt.
His body, a discarded puppet.