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We ate together in a companionable silence. I helped myself to a second sausage and liberally applied mustard. I was famished.
“This is good,” I said.
Konstantin shrugged. “I scrounged it up in my kitchen. It’s hardly fit for a prince.”
Too late, Wendel wrote.Disinherited a long time ago.
“You’re still the Prince of the Undying.”
You flatter me, archmage.
Konstantin leaned closer to Wendel to read what he had written. Their elbows bumped on accident. Still blushing spectacularly, he fumbled with the bread he was buttering. “You’re welcome, necromancer.”
Wendel’s eyes glinted, but he cringed and rubbed his mouth. He couldn’t even laugh. Worry wormed in my stomach. When I looked at Konstantin, his eyes betrayed his own unease. The mood in the room darkened.
Wendel tapped his pen on the paper.How did you find me?
Konstantin straightened. “I rewired the control systems in the Eisenkriegers, then used the interference to triangulate your location in the coffin factory.” If he was waiting for a compliment, he wasn’t going to get one.
I see.Wendel clenched his jaw.The Eisenkriegers were not what I expected.
“What do you mean?” Konstantin asked.
Wendel hunched over the paper as he wrote.You killed those assassins like insects.
Konstantin’s eyes flickered as he read and reread the words.
“Killing efficiently?” I asked. “That bothered you, Wendel?”
Wendel locked gazes with me. His eyes burned with intensity. He touched a napkin to his mouth, and it came away red with blood. He wanted to speak so badly that pain wouldn’t stop him from trying.
“The Hex will not last forever,” Konstantin said. “We need Project Lazarus.”
“Not even the archmages believe in the architecture of their peace?”
Konstantin pressed his mouth into a grim line. “I may be the youngest archmage in Vienna, but I’m not the most naïve. Removing gunpowder from the equation might buy us another year, two at most, but that hasn’t stopped Romanian rebels from fighting Austria-Hungary for control of Transylvania.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We have been on the brink of war for months.”
Wendel’s pen scratched quickly.How will an army of Eisenkriegers help with peace?
Konstantin frowned. “Austria-Hungary’s safety depends on the strength of her army.”
An army of metal men. You don’t intend to give your enemies a fighting chance.
“Isn’t that the point?” I said. “We need to win this war as fast as possible.”
His eyes shadowed, Wendel looked away. He tore the page from the notebook, crumpled it in his fist, and tossed it into the fireplace.
The teakettle shrieked. Konstantin leapt to his feet.
“Wendel,” I murmured. “Now isn’t the time to argue with the archmages.”
He locked stares with me, and I tried to decipher his emotions. Desperation battled with hope in his eyes. God, I knew that feeling all too well. He had hit rock bottom, when the only way out was up.
Konstantin returned with a chipped teapot. He poured us each a cup.
“Enough about the Hex,” he said. “I have been thinking about Wendel’s curse.”
