Specters of Nemesis

1914…

Walking around New York City without a sword felt like tempting Fate.

Ardis reached for her hip, fingers clenching and unclenching. She tried not to imagine a maid feather-dusting her blade back at the hotel.

Breathing deeply, she steered clear of rich ladies shopping for fripperies. Ostrich feathers bobbed from their hats, shading their bland faces. At least in Manhattan, nobody looked twice at her tawny hair and Chinese eyes. An electric streetcar barreled down the avenue, brakes squealing. Sparks rained from the trolley pole and fizzled on the wet asphalt. She shielded her eyes, though not one New Yorker flinched.

God, she was supposed to be enjoying herself.

She had survived assassins, an airship crash, and the invading Imperial Russian Army. This stupid feeling of vulnerability had to be the fault of pregnancy. Hadn’t the nausea been enough punishment? The whole zeppelin flight to America, she had paid homage to a toilet, though she felt less sick on solid ground.

Two months down, seven more to go. Maybe the war in Europe would end first.

Right.

Navigating the crowds, she walked a few blocks to Bryant Park. London plane trees waved their bare branches over the grass. Pigeons jumped, wings clapping, from the bright marble of the New York Public Library.

Where was Wendel?

He had promised to meet her for dinner, though promises weren’t his strong suit.

The perfume of roast chestnuts drifted on the breeze. Her stomach growled. She spotted an old man, probably Italian, and rummaged money from her pocket. With a tobacco-stained smile, the old man handed her a brown paper packet of chestnuts that heated her hands.

Ardis returned his smile. “Thanks,” she said, glad to be speaking English.

Her German was decent, but it was never precise enough for Germans.

She sat on a bench and cracked open the hot chestnuts. Their sweet taste reminded her of maple syrup. She rolled the last of the chestnuts between her fingers, rubbing her thumb over its glossy shell, and frowned at the street.

Still no sign of Wendel. Where the hell was the necromancer?

Like a scrap of burnt paper, a raven floated overhead and landed in a tree. “Krampus?” Ardis squinted at the bird.

Where Krampus was, Wendel was never far behind. Black feathers bristled at the raven’s throat when he croaked hoarsely. He flew from the tree and landed by her feet, pecking at her boots before yanking her shoestring.

“Krampus!” Ardis shooed away the raven. “Stop being a brat. Where’s…?”

The question died on her lips.

Wendel crossed the street with his hand inside his coat. He staggered, his breath fogging the winter air, and coughed.

Ardis clenched the chestnut in her fist. “Wendel?”

He sank onto the bench, unsteady on his feet. Was he drunk? If she had to bet, her money would be on Enderman’s, that German beer hall. Wind ruffled his black hair. He combed it with his fingers, his white skin stained red.

“Blood?” Her voice sounded brittle. “Wendel!”

He looked sideways at her. Daylight glinted in his eyes, shifting them from green to gray. “I should have never left the Hex.”

Why would he care about a curse thousands of miles away? Unless…

She yanked aside the lapel of his coat. Under the black wool, blood crawled over his shirt, leaking from a gunshot wound.

Her breath stopped dead in her throat. “You got shot.”

“Evidently.” His smile was unconvincing, his hands trembling too hard.

“We have to get you to a hospital.”

“Not the hospital.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.” She grabbed his arm. “Who shot you?”

“No one.”

“This isn’t the time for sarcasm!”

He leaned heavily on her as they stood. “Ardis, I don’t think I can make it.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Wendel wasn’t lying. Only a block later, his knees hit the street, dragging her halfway down with him. He clutched his ribs, fighting to stay upright, before he slumped unconscious. Ardis grabbed his shoulders, trying to shake him awake, but his head lolled in the dirty slush. Strangers gathered to gawk down at them.

“Someone get a doctor.” Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. “Now!”

~

The tiny hospital room stank of bleach and sickness. Outside the only window, rain streaked the evening with gloom. Wendel lay in bed with his fists clenched over the sheets. Could he sense the dead and dying, even while sleeping? Ardis rubbed his knuckles, though his hands didn’t relax under her touch.

“Wendel,” she whispered.

He hadn’t woken since the ambulance brought him here. The doctors injected him with a sedative before they pulled a bullet from between his ribs and stitched him up. Blood dripped into his veins via a needle in his arm.

Dread wormed in her stomach. She hated seeing him so weak.

Ardis hunched in a chair by the bed, her elbows on her knees, and pinched the bridge of her nose. A headache throbbed behind her temples; her eyes felt gritty from her refusal to cry. The police would come knocking and ask questions she couldn’t answer. Maybe it would be better if Wendel didn’t wake so soon.

When the door opened, with the whine of rusty hinges, she didn’t look up right away.

“Ardis.” The voice, more gravel than honey, grabbed her by the throat.

Wendel?

He stood with his hand on the door, his black coat dotted with snow not yet melted. His face looked blank, even his eyes unreadable. There was something wrong with his hair; it wasn’t ragged, hacked short, but longer than his shoulders. When she stole a glance back at the bed, Wendel still lay sleeping. The other Wendel wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times she blinked like she could wake from a bad dream.

“I know who shot him,” Wendel said from the doorway.

The heat drained from her face and left her icy. “Who are you?” Her voice rasped on the words, and she swallowed hard.

“You know who I am.”

She held up her hand. “Do not tell me Wendel has an identical twin brother.”

His rough laugh shivered down her spine. “Not to my knowledge.” His gaze wandered to the bed, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.

“Give me more of an explanation than that.”

Wendel crossed the room, snow drifting from his coat, and dragged a chair to the bed, where he sat opposite Ardis. He kept glancing at himself sleeping. “I remember this hospital. The moment I woke. And everything after it.”

“I’m asking one more time.” She leaned away; he was too close. “Who are you?”

He met her gaze, his eyes shadowed. “He is my past. I am his future.”

“You traveled through time?” When he nodded, she swallowed hard. “How?”

“The archmage’s temporal magic. The last thing he built before… before I came here.” Something in his hesitation wasn’t convincing.

“What happened to Konstantin?”

He smoothed his hair from his face. “He tinkered with technomancy he shouldn’t have.”

She studied his face with intense scrutiny, noting how a scar slashed his cheekbone, how the lines across his forehead had deepened. The clash of strange and familiar unnerved her. “How far have you traveled?”

“Too far.” His eyes darkened. “Too long.”

Cold scuttled through her stomach. “Why did you come back?”

“The war.”

Of course. She wanted to know what happened, which countries joined the fray, but she wasn’t sure he would tell her the truth.

“Ardis.” He reached for her hand before stopping himself. “We need to go.”

“Why?”

Wendel glanced at a clock on the wall. “We have three hours to find the man who shot me and kill him first.”

She pushed herself from the chair to pace. “Murder somebody?”

“Self-defense.” He shrugged. “Retroactively.”

She furrowed her brow. “Why three hours?”

“Because I’ve read the police records. That’s when the NYPD question him.”

“Won’t killing him make the future worse?”

“Better.” He tilted his head. “Hopefully. I can’t predict every possibility.”

“Then why time travel at all?”

“To try again.”

Shaking her head, she combed her fingers through her hair. “God, Wendel, who is he? Why did he shoot you in the first place?”

He swept his arm toward the door. “Let me show you.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t just leave him–you–there.” She waved at the bed.

His lips bent in a smile. “I’ll live.”

“Of course,” she muttered. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“Rest assured, I won’t wake until the morning, thanks to the morphine.”

“How do you–?”

“I remember.”

She held his stare. “What happens if I don’t help you?”

His smile vanished. “Far too many will suffer. This time, we do things right.”

~

Rats rustled along the street in the shipyard, fleeing from Wendel’s footsteps. Ardis touched the Chinese jian at her hip–Chun Yi hummed with sleeping magic. The enchanted blade had an insatiable thirst for blood.

Wendel halted her in an alleyway. “You didn’t need to bring that sword.”

“I’m not about to walk into a fight unarmed.”

He twisted his mouth. “A burning sword isn’t what I would call stealthy.”

“Fine.” She peeled her sweaty hand from the sword’s pommel. “I won’t draw Chun Yi until we blow our cover.”

“What makes you think we will blow our cover?”

“Wendel.” She looked at him for a long moment. “We always do.”

“Speak for yourself.” From a pocket in his coat, he drew a dagger of black Damascus steel, inlaid with silver flowers.

“Amarant,” she said, her stomach tightening.

Wendel cocked an eyebrow. “Shall we?”

He took her hand and she shivered. Shadows rushed from the dagger, spinning cobwebs of darkness over their skin. When the magic crawled over her face, she held her breath while fighting the feeling of claustrophobia.

“Much better,” Wendel murmured.

Nearly invisible in the night, they walked toward the water. Transatlantic liners and cargo vessels lurked off the coast. Black waves sucked at the docks with a glopping noise. The air stank of creosote, saltwater, and dead fish.

“Who are we looking for?” she whispered.

“The man who shot me.”

She sighed. “Describe him.”

“Short, balding, smug.”

“Smug,” she repeated. In the shadows, Wendel’s face faded in and out, impossible to read. Was he being sarcastic?

“He shouldn’t be too hard to kill. We have the element of surprise.”

“Can I ask why he shot you?”

He cleared his throat. “All this talk of American neutrality is a lie.”

“I don’t follow.”

“See that freighter? The Reliant.” He pointed at a hulking silhouette. “Loaded with weapons, made in America. Bombs, firearms, and ammunition. All of them bound for Russia.”

They had fought the Tsar’s men there, on battlefields dirty with blood-soaked snow. They had narrowly escaped death at the claws of the Russian’s clockwork dragon. But she expected him to abandon the war across the water.

“Why get involved?” she said, frowning. “Wasn’t Königsberg enough?”

“Money,” he said.

Her frown deepened. “You lied to me. Told me you were looking for honest work.”

“Did I?” He managed a smidgen of innocence. “It’s hard to recall.”

“Who’s paying?”

“Nemesis.” His eyes cold, he stared at the Reliant.

“Whose nemesis?”

“No, the Greek goddess.”

“Of revenge?”

“Of justice.” His mouth thinned. “The name appealed to a group of saboteurs and spies with loyalty to the German Empire.”

“I didn’t expect loyalty from you,” she muttered.

He ignored her comment. “Nemesis first approached me in America. Recruited me at Enderman’s. They found my talents as an assassin and necromancer irresistible, not to mention my fluency in both English and German.”

She snorted. “You haven’t gotten any humbler.”

“Not even I can stop a bullet.” He rubbed his chest as if remembering the gunshot. “But I can stop the police from arresting me.”

“By killing the man who tried to kill you?”

“Precisely.”

“You still haven’t said why he shot you.”

“I boarded the Reliant to steal the ship’s manifest.”

She arched her eyebrows. “In broad daylight?”

“Dockworkers change shifts at four o’clock. That commotion provided me with cover. I boarded without incident, but the guard caught me in the captain’s quarters. In my infinite wisdom, I brought a dagger to a gunfight.”

“God, Wendel. Your arrogance will be the death of you.”

“Though the bastard won’t expect me to return for an encore performance.”

Her fingers tightened around his. “So we kill the guard and get the manifest.”

“Without anyone seeing us.” Wendel’s low voice raised goosebumps on her skin. “You distract him; I attack from behind.”

“Quick and dirty?”

“Exactly.”

They halted behind a warehouse and peered around the corner. Light from a streetlamp gnawed at the shadows cloaking Wendel; he couldn’t go any farther without being seen. A stocky guard hunched on the boardwalk, the end of a cigarette glowing red between his knuckles. He took a drag and flicked ash into the water.

“After you,” Wendel whispered.

Ardis hesitated. “Hold this.” She unbuckled her sword from her belt.

“Why–?”

“I need a cover story.”

She untied her braid, raking her fingers through her hair, then tugged down her neckline. Wendel frowned. Unarmed, she stepped from the darkness. The guard’s shoulders tensed, his head low like a bull ready to charge.

“Excuse me,” she said, “are you in charge here?”

“What’s it matter to you?” His hand gripped the edge of his coat. He had a gun inside, she was sure of it.

“I want to talk to the boss.”

“Really?” He spat a glob of glistening mucus at her feet. “We don’t hire women.”

She raised her eyebrows, her hands at her waist, and jutted out one hip. “Sure you don’t.”

“You aren’t pretty enough to be turning tricks for the boss.”

Her jaw clenched, but she kept her tone sweet. “Don’t have to be pretty in the dark.”

He grunted. “How about I cut you a deal?”

“Try me.”

“Give me a little taste of the goods.” He lumbered toward her, his hands on his belt, leaving the safety of the light.

Her heart hammering, Ardis stood her ground. “You sure about that?”

Wendel sidestepped from the darkness. His dagger flashed as he slit the man’s throat. Amarant sliced flesh like a knife through cake. Dark, slick spurts gushed from the wound. Choking on his own blood, the man dropped to his knees, clawing at his neck. He thudded flat on the boardwalk. His boot twitched once.

“Here.” Wendel returned the sword to Ardis. “You might need this next time.”

She thanked him with a nod, buckling on the scabbard. “This way was faster.”

Wendel edged around the widening pool of blood, careful not to dirty his boots, before crouching by the dying man. He sighed, clearly impatient, waiting for the man’s last gurgling gasps to end. A moment later, he touched the corpse between the eyes and brought him back from the dead–a minion under his control.

“You shot me.” It wasn’t a question. “Did anyone else see it happen?”

The undead man spluttered, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t–know.”

“Remember.” The necromancer’s face looked fierce with concentration. Ardis knew this magic taxed his strength. “Who else?”

“Maybe…” The dead man’s dull eyes stared skyward. “Maybe Jack.”

“Jack who?”

“Jack Beaumont.”

Wendel cursed and released the corpse. It looked toward him, awaiting further orders. “Take a long walk off a short pier.”

The dead man lurched to his feet and shuffled down the boardwalk. Without hesitation, he stepped into the space beyond and tipped into the water. He sank without a single bubble, a man with no need to breathe.

“Damn.” Wendel knelt on the boardwalk and bent over the water. Glowering, he washed the blood from his hands. “I forgot to ask him what Jack Beaumont looks like. We can’t leave another witness blundering around.”

Ardis bit the inside of her cheek. “We have to kill him, don’t we?”

He focused on scrubbing between his fingers, trying to erase the feel of death, no doubt. “And anyone else in our way.”

“Are you sure this will change the future?”

“I would do anything to keep you safe.”

The knot in her stomach tightened. What happened to her in his timeline? But she didn’t want to feed this fear, so she didn’t ask. “We should clean this up.” She waved at the blood, which glittered with the city lights.

He sighed. “I should have made the dead man do it.”

Nausea curdled her stomach. She knew the necromancer joked about the morbid to distance himself from it, but this was too callous. Even if the guard had shot him. What if Wendel lied? What if the guard was innocent? She couldn’t dredge up that corpse and interrogate him. Sometimes she wished she could.

Wendel dragged over a barrel of rainwater and tipped it over. Water sloshed over the blood, sweeping it into the bay. She gripped her sword’s pommel, Chun Yi’s thirst pulsing like a heartbeat. The blade wanted to spill more blood.

“The shipping manifest?” she said.

“Aboard the Reliant.” He swept his arm. “Ladies first.”

“Are you sure that guy was the only guard?”

He shrugged. “Hopefully we won’t have to leave a trail of corpses.”

“Good plan,” she muttered.

The Reliant looked anything but reliable. A windjammer with an iron hull, her sails dingy like old laundry. Ardis wondered if the ship’s cargo could possibly be a real threat to Nemesis. Perhaps this disrepair served as a disguise.

A short gangway led to the ship, the gate padlocked, though that didn’t stop her from vaulting aboard. The deck of the ship tilted underfoot. Stumbling, she caught herself against a rope stretched taut in the rigging.

“Are you all right?” Wendel leapt aboard with slightly more grace. He touched the back of her hand, only for a moment.

She stepped back. “Yes.” Her cheeks burned.

“Be careful.” He lowered his voice. “For the baby’s sake.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?” She meant it as a joke, but her voice wavered.

He looked away, his gaze on the black water. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why?” The instant she asked, she regretted it.

But he said nothing, walking toward the stern of the ship. He stopped at the door to the captain’s quarters and jiggled the handle.

“Nothing a lockpick can’t fix,” he muttered.

Her fingers strayed to her sword. She couldn’t help glancing around, as if another guard might interrupt them at any moment.

The lock clicked. “The manifest should be in here,” he said.

“Let’s get it and get out.” She crossed the swaying deck, though she wasn’t sure if that was the only reason she felt off balance.

The captain’s quarters smelled musty, like books ruined by rain. A battered desk stretched along a wall opposite a berth with a lumpy mattress. Wendel slid open all the drawers in rapid succession, rifling through papers and folders. He stopped, for a moment, and frowned at a blueprint before handing it to Ardis.

“Nemesis was right to be worried,” he said.

The blue ink smudged her fingers. “What’s this?”

She unrolled the blueprint on the desk–schematics for some sort of electrified crossbow. The Hex negated gunpowder within Germany and the borders of its allies, but that magic didn’t prevent you from electrocuting your enemies.

“Thunderbolt.” She grunted at the name. “I wonder if it works.”

Wendel arched an eyebrow. “I wonder if Nikola Tesla knows about this.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He has a morbid fascination with electricity.”

“Morbid fascination?” she repeated. “You’re a fine one to talk.”

He grimaced like he tasted something sour. “I never asked to be a necromancer.”

She gave him a look. “Nobody asked you to keep raising the dead.”

“It’s useful,” he said, with no small amount of sarcasm.

She spotted a journal bound in black leather. “This looks like a manifest to me.”

“Perfect.” He squinted at the Thunderbolt blueprint. “For once, I wish the archmage was here to ramble on about technomancy.”

“Konstantin?”

“Yes…”

She rifled through the journal, which indeed contained ledgers of shipments. Arrows, ammo, and armor. The ammo seemed odd, like they were optimistic about destroying the Hex and returning to infantry armed with guns.

Wendel rolled up the blueprint. “Perhaps these crossbows are the work of Tesla’s rival.”

“And?”

“Perhaps Tesla might be persuaded to work for Nemesis.”

She studied his face, which was unreadable, unsurprisingly. “Does Tesla work for the German Empire? In the future?”

He smirked. “If I tell you all the secrets, there won’t be any to look forward to.”

“Didn’t you come from a terrible future?”

“I did.” He pocketed the blueprint in his coat. “But together we can rewrite history.”

She followed him to the door. “You don’t believe in Fate?”

“Hell, no.”

~

New York City never slept. Taxis honked at horse carriages and jaywalkers even at three in the morning. Ardis flinched, her nerves frayed. They stopped at their hotel, where she hid her sword, before walking to the hospital.

The whole time, Wendel said nothing, his eyes focused somewhere faraway.

“When do we report to Nemesis?” she said.

“We?” He grimaced and pinched the bridge of his nose, like he had a headache.

“It pays to be prompt.”

“Ardis, have I ever told you how mercenary you can be?”

“You aren’t usually that rude.”

“I will endeavor to be the model of politeness.”

They stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. “Of course, I need to be at the hospital when Wendel–you–wake.”

“So devoted.”

The light changed and they crossed together. “What happens if he sees you?” she said.

“The archmage babbled about unraveling time, or some such nonsense.”

She climbed the steps to the hospital. “Let’s not do that.”

Disinfectant stung her nose, chased by the stink of sickness. She swallowed hard, her stomach turning. They returned to the room where the other Wendel lay sleeping. Wendel from the future eyed him without emotion. “When the police arrive at four o’clock, to ask you about Nemesis, you have to claim ignorance.”

She glared at him. “I was ignorant until you told me.”

“Fair point.” He shrugged. “Pretend to be my distraught fiancée. Perhaps a few tears.”

She glared harder. “Fiancée? And I don’t cry on command.”

Wendel fetched his sleeping doppelgänger’s coat from a chair. He rummaged inside before tossing a black velvet box into her lap. “This might help your alibi.” When she hesitated, he arched an eyebrow. “Open it.”

“What is it?”

“Not a grenade, I promise.”

Her fingers fumbled on the velvet, though it wasn’t bloodstained like she feared. She cracked open the box and forgot to breathe. A ring. An ornate knot of diamonds glittered around the ring’s heart, a ruby gleaming in the gloom.

Tears prickled her traitorous eyes. “You were going to propose?” she whispered.

“At some point.” Wendel wouldn’t look at her. “Keep the ring. I have to go.”

“Why?”

“Before that Wendel wakes up.” He hesitated in the doorway. “Meet me at the hotel.”

Without waiting for her reply, he strode from the room and left her shaking. She closed the box, since she couldn’t look at the ring, not like this. She should put it back in the coat. It belonged to the Wendel she knew.

Not that stranger.

Ardis hesitated by Wendel’s bed before she reached for his coat. Her fingers lingered on the black wool. With a rattling gasp, Wendel blinked open his eyes. He coughed twice before he struggled to shove himself upright.

She caught him by the arm. “Lie down. They just stitched you back together.”

“Ardis.” His voice was all gravel. “I had a dream–” He frowned and didn’t finish, slumping back in the bed. “You found it.”

Her face hot with guilt, she held the box in her hand. “In your coat.”

“At least we know the nurses aren’t kleptomaniacs.”

His attempt at a smile brought the tears back to her eyes. “But how did you buy this?”

He cocked his head. “At a jewelry store?”

“You can’t afford a ring this big!”

“I wanted it to be a surprise, so I may have lied about my income.”

She cracked open the box. The ruby glinted in the shadows. “Tell me the truth.”

“My inheritance remains out of reach.” He shrugged. “That’s the unfortunate truth.”

“And?”

“Out of necessity, I deigned to find employment befitting a commoner.”

“Wendel!”

He seemed pleased by his own pantomimed snobbery. “It’s hardly one of the crown jewels, but do you like it?”

Ignoring the ring, she inhaled. “Where are you working?”

Wendel met her gaze. An emotion, too quick to read, flashed through his eyes. “I’m not sure how to best describe the position.”

She considered telling him she already knew everything. But then she would have to explain the arrival of another Wendel, and worry if that would unravel time, or whatever Konstantin told Wendel in the future.

Would tell Wendel? She couldn’t even keep her grammar straight.

“Someone shot you.” She looked him in the eye. “It’s something bad, isn’t it?”

He twisted his mouth. “Not bad, necessarily, merely something you might find–”

“Dangerous?”

“Yes.” He forced a smile. “Though it pays better because of the risk.”

“You could have died!”

He waved away her comment like it didn’t matter. “I’m working as a merchant of sorts. We do business in secrets.”

“For whom?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Nemesis.”

She didn’t have to fake the shock on her face. He had told her the truth. “You’re not talking about the goddess, are you?”

He tilted his head as if considering his reply with caution. “Nemesis works to protect and advance the interests of my homeland.”

“By protect and advance, you mean sabotage and spying?”

He lifted his shoulders. “When appropriate.” He met her eyes. “Are you angry with me?”

She realized she was gritting her teeth and exhaled in an attempt to relax. “Honestly? I was expecting you to tell more lies.”

He reached across the bed and placed the ring in her palm. “And?”

The ruby glinted against her skin. Her throat tightened, choking her words. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable with this.”

His hand closed over hers, the ring trapped between them. “I can wait.”

Tears stinging her eyes, she blinked fast. Deep somewhere secret in her heart, she wished she could be the kind of woman who saw an engagement ring and felt nothing but joy, but she knew she wasn’t. “Wendel, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Please.”

“I just–” She swallowed hard and dried her cheeks with her knuckles. “I just can’t see myself as anyone’s wife.”

He laughed, his eyes sparkling. “Forgive me, but I beg to disagree.”

“The idea scares me.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything.”

His teasing loosened the knot in her throat. “Then you don’t know me.”

Wendel’s hand tightened around hers, his eyes stunning with clarity. “Allow me the privilege of knowing you for years to come.”

She blinked away yet more tears. “You’re impossible to resist.”

He broke into a grin. “My evil plan all along.”

“I’m not sure what to say.”

“Maybe yes?” He stared into her eyes, clearly trying to win her over.

“Maybe.” She laughed through her tears and slid the ring on her finger, where it belonged. “You know I never cry like this.”

He smiled as she dabbed her nose. “I love you, Ardis, tears and all.”

She flapped a handkerchief at him. “This is your fault! You ambushed me with an absurdly large ruby and a secret job as a spy.”

“My apologies.” He didn’t look sorry at all.

“Not to mention you knocked me up.”

He squinted. “I’m not familiar with the phrase.”

“You can put two and two together.”

“Ah.” He dipped his head. “Hopefully this will help you worry less.”

Fear knifed her stomach. Wendel may have told her the truth, but she couldn’t tell him anything about the Wendel from the future, could she? She put on a smile and avoided his eyes, praying he would believe her deception.

~

The cops arrived like clockwork at four in the morning.

A pair of policemen strode into Wendel’s room. The taller man had a baby face and a flickering smile that made Ardis nervous. The shorter man, as grizzled and jowly as an old pug, flashed a badge. “Detective Grimaldi.” He waved at nothing in particular. “My partner, Sergeant Finnegan. Mind if we ask a few questions?”

Wendel’s stare could have frozen water. “Is that a request?”

Detective Grimaldi raised his eyebrows. “No.” He dragged a chair to the bed and tugged up the knees of his trousers before sitting.

Sergeant Finnegan took Ardis by the elbow. “Right this way.” His accent betrayed an Irish background. She let him walk her down the hallway. Better not to resist. She didn’t need to be on the bad side of the NYPD. Finnegan waved at chairs in the corner, shadowed by a shedding Christmas tree. “Please, sit.”

She did as he said. “Thank you.” Might as well pretend to have manners.

He slipped a notebook and pen from his pocket. “Your name?”

“Ardis Black.” At least, that’s what it said on her forged passport. She bit the inside of her cheek and stared at her hands.

Finnegan jotted this down, his face untroubled. “And your husband?”

“Fiancé.” Her cheeks warmed, since it still didn’t feel real. “Wendel von Preussen.”

“Occupation?”

There was no good way to answer that. She clenched her sweaty hands into fists. “We both worked for the Archmages of Vienna.”

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his spindly legs at the ankles. “Past tense?”

“We’re taking time off to visit America.” None of this was untrue. If Wendel decided to lie, that would be his problem.

“Are you aware of any enemies Wendel might have?”

A bleak laugh escaped her mouth. Where to start? She couldn’t even begin to imagine how many people wanted him dead.

“Miss Black?” Finnegan waited with a blank look in his watery eyes.

“I don’t know who would shoot him in New York.” She twisted the ring on her finger. “All of his enemies live thousands of miles away.”

“Who?”

“We thought we escaped the war.” She softened her voice and stared at the floor, trying to look vulnerable.

“Miss Black, I need to know names.”

She shook her head. “Soldiers and mercenaries don’t leave calling cards.”

Finnegan’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me more about Wendel’s whereabouts last night.”

“The night before he was shot?” The scent of blood and saltwater lingered in her nose; she sucked in a calming breath.

The policeman studied her for a moment. “Yes.”

“He was with me.”

“All night?”

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. “He stopped at Enderman’s. That beer hall.”

“The one in Kleindeutschland?”

“I think so.”

Finnegan jotted this down before tapping his pen on his lips. “Thank you. Wait here, Miss Black, while I check with my partner.” After unfolding his legs, he walked to Wendel’s room, but the door swung open first.

Grimaldi glanced between them with a scowl. “That will be all. Goodbye.”

The air rushed from Ardis’s lungs. They hadn’t arrested Wendel.

Yet.

When she returned to his room, he looked even paler than before, staring out the window. Rain trickled down the glass. “Ardis.”

She shut the door behind herself. “What did you tell the cops?”

When Wendel shrugged, he winced and touched his bandage. “That I fought a mugger.”

“How heroic of you.”

“The truth isn’t much better.” His jaw taut, he kept staring into the darkness. “Nemesis sent me to retrieve a ship’s manifest and a guard caught me. Can you believe it? When I tried to talk my way out of it, he shot me.”

“Be glad you’re alive.”

He scowled. “I should finish off the bastard.”

Twice? The other Wendel beat him to it. “You can’t leave this hospital bed.”

A crooked smile bent his mouth. “Not even with you to nurse me back to health?”

“I’m bound to do more harm than good.”

“You would make a pleasant nurse. In that uniform…” He looked her up and down.

She braced one hand on her hip. “Careful, or I might worsen your condition.”

“By all means.”

“You must be feeling better. You’re being a bastard again.”

His smile widened into a grin. “Am I?”

~

Dawn came late to New York City as Ardis returned to Hotel Donovan. Sunlight crept through cracks in the buildings and fought the long shadows of skyscrapers. The hotel was hardly the Waldorf-Astoria, but marble floors in the lobby tended to guarantee a lack of bedbugs. She nodded at the concierge’s professional smile.

Her eyes gritty, she trudged upstairs and fumbled with the key to their room.

“Need help?”

Wendel stepped from the shadows, cobwebs of darkness clinging to his skin, the black dagger in his hand. Ardis jumped, reaching again for the sword that wasn’t at her side. He returned Amarant to a pocket inside his coat.

“Don’t try to scare me,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

“I wasn’t.” He leaned against the wall. “How did it go?”

“I didn’t tell the police anything.”

“Good.”

She jabbed the key into the lock and twisted. Wendel reached over her shoulder and pushed open the door. She sidestepped away from him–he wasn’t Wendel, not the one she knew, not even if he looked so familiar.

He followed her into the room. The door clicked shut with a finality that kicked her heartbeat into a higher gear. Wendel tossed his coat over the couch before sprawling there. She stared at him. “What are you doing?”

He peered at her through his lashes, his eyes glittering. “Making myself comfortable.”

“Here?” Her throat clenched on the word.

He let his head fall back and inspected the ceiling. “Unless you wish otherwise.”

She kicked off her boots. “You’re not wearing a ring.”

“Pardon?”

“Was there never a wedding?” She smoothed her hair back. “What happens to us?”

Wendel met her stare and held it without blinking. “That future isn’t inevitable.”

Damn it, why couldn’t she decipher the shadows in his eyes? “You’ve already changed so much by coming here.”

“It’s too late now.”

“What happens when we get to the day where you travel back in time?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Haven’t the slightest clue. Perhaps we should ignore paradoxes.”

When he stood, she resisted the urge to retreat. He stared at her with a sharp interest in his eyes, as if he wanted to dissect her emotions. Or her clothes. He wasn’t Wendel, but he was, and she couldn’t deny the heat simmering under her skin. Like she was tempted by adultery. Wouldn’t that make her unfaithful to the other Wendel?

That was a paradox worse than time travel.

He took a step in her direction, and another, cornering her by the bed. She wanted to touch him, to see if he felt real, but she dug her fingernails into her palms. “Ardis.” The way he whispered her name unleashed a cascade of shivers over her skin. She imagined his hand pressing hard into the small of her back.

Her body betraying her, she couldn’t help swaying toward him. “What do I call you?”

“Pardon?”

“You aren’t Wendel.”

“That’s still my name.” He stared into her eyes. “I still love you.”

“Don’t say that.” Her pulse throbbed in her throat. “What do you want?”

“You.”

His hand slipped behind her neck, his fingers rough with years of callouses, years she hadn’t yet experienced with him. The Wendel she knew didn’t feel this desperate, didn’t look at her with such raw lust in his eyes.

How had he changed? Why did she want to find out in all the wrong ways?

She touched her fingertips to his chest, holding him at bay. “This isn’t right.”

“You don’t trust me,” he whispered.

“I don’t know you.”

His eyes darkened. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

When he kissed her, she didn’t have time to retreat. His mouth met hers with a ferocity that knocked the air from her lungs.

“Wendel–” She tried to speak, but he kissed her again. “Wendel!”

He broke away. “Yes?”

Heat scorched her face; her heartbeat galloped like she had sprinted a mile. “What’s wrong with you?” Tempted to finish what he started, she swallowed hard and clenched her fists. “You didn’t travel through time to seduce me.”

“I don’t see why not,” he said, his voice husky.

“God!” She shoved him away. “You don’t care about yourself at all?”

He squinted. “At the risk of sounding conceited, I care very much about myself.”

“Your past self.”

“I’m giving him something to look forward to.”

Wendel reached for her hips, but she leaned back. “Are you sure that’s how this works?”

“Let’s find out.”