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I was sitting in a chair, my arms pinned down with rope twisted tight around my wrists. Something was wrong with my head, or something was wrong with the world. Time stuttered and sped forward like a bad movie reel.
Disoriented, I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Look at me,” said a man.
Adrenaline jolted my nerves. I peeked through my eyelashes. Rain fell through the chasm in the roof of the coffin factory.
A man stepped into my line of sight. An assassin. His blood-splattered white cloak flowed to his feet. Engraved gauntletsarmored his hands. Although he had a grizzled beard, his dark eyes glinted with vitality.
“Temporal magic often does strange things to the mind.”
No wonder I had blacked out so fast. The chokehold had been accelerated.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He pondered my question. “A technomancer. You may call me Hieronymus. And you?”
I narrowed my eyes. What did he already know?
“He knows your name, doesn’t he?” Hieronymus dragged my chair around.
Wendel.
He fought his handcuffs, his wrists raw and bloody, and knocked shards of glass from the window. His eyes glittered with powerless fury.
My throat clenched. “Why can’t he speak?”
Hieronymus leaned over my shoulder and smiled indulgently as if I were a stupid child.
“Because he wouldn’t.”
The blood on his white robes had to be Wendel’s blood.
Rage exploded inside me like a firework. I snarled at him. “You never should have touched him.”
“Why?” Hieronymus stared at me. “Do you care about him?”
Fuck. The icy fist of fear clenched my gut. There was no right way to answer that.
I forced my face to be blank. “Why do you care?”
“Curiosity.” When Hieronymus tapped my shoulder, I flinched. “Tell me your name.”
“Ardis.”
“Ardis,” he murmured in my ear, his breath hot and rank. “I’m afraid that pain has lost its meaning for Wendel. Hurting him has become pointless.”
Out of the corner of my eye, a black blade glinted. Fuck, he had stolen Amarant. My heartbeat thundering, I stared straight at the floor.
Hieronymus circled me and traced the razor edge of the dagger along my forearm. “You cared enough to find him. Is the feeling mutual?”
My mouth went bone dry. “I’m a mercenary with the Archmages of Vienna. I was hired to find the necromancer and bring him back to them.” None of that was a lie, though it omitted much of the truth.
I prayed that Konstantin had realized something had gone terribly wrong. I hadn’t returned from the coffin factory. I didn’t know how long it had been.
“Ardis?” Hieronymus sighed. “You are a pitiful liar.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
