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“Ma’am—”
“We’re paying guests. We have every right to eat here.”
The waiter sniffed. “I’m afraid you may be mistaken, ma’am. There are fewer of your American liberties here.”
I leaned back in my chair. “You saw his offensive profession last night. If it weren’t for the two of us, you would all have your throats slit by rebels. You should be thanking us. How about some hospitality?”
Wendel pushed his chair from the table. “Ardis, enough.”
“Fine.” I followed him from the dining car back to our cabin. “What an asshole.”
“I can only hope you don’t mean me.”
“No, the waiter. He didn’t even serve you!”
Wendel locked the door behind us. The click sounded loud despite the noise of the train rattling over the tracks. My gaze kept getting dragged back to his lips. If I kissed him, would he still taste like absinthe?
“Why are you here?” he asked.
I sat down on a seat. “Because you booked a single cabin, remember?”
He arched his eyebrows. “The waiter didn’t ask you to leave the dining car. You can go drink your coffee in peace.”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Not enough to return to the dining car.” He twisted his mouth. “It wasn’t as if I resurrected skeletons at the table.”
My jaw dropped. “Skeletons? You can resurrect skeletons?”
“No.” Wendel lounged on the seat opposite me. “They tend to fall apart into bones.”
I needed to keep him talking. Maybe he would answer more of my questions and tell me why he was on the run.
“Have you always known you were a necromancer?” I asked.
“No. Not always.”
“When did you find out?”
He looked out the window, his gaze far away. “There was a cat. A kitten, really. A gray tabby with green eyes. I had him when I was little, and I named him Maus. My mother made me keep him in the stables. She wasn’t fond of cats. I would visit him every day after I finished lessons with my tutors. One day, Maus vanished. The stable boy told me that the cat had been kicked by a horse. Killed.”
“God,” I whispered.
I knew where this story was going. I crossed my arms across my chest and resisted the urge to touch him.
“I went looking for Maus,” Wendel continued. “I found him lying by the rubbish heap. His body was so pathetic. Tiny and limp. I went to pick him up. I remember wanting to touch him one last time. When I petted Maus, he woke up.”
My throat ached until it was hard to speak. “You didn’t know, did you?”
“I didn’t.” His voice roughened. “I brought Maus to my mother and father. I didn’t understand why they were so angry with me, or why they told the groundskeeper to bring Maus into the woods and burn him to ashes.”
Tears stung my eyes. “How old were you?”
“Eleven. That was a month before they said goodbye.”
“They sent you to the Order of the Asphodel?”
“Yes.” He laughed bitterly, though his eyes glimmered with emotion. “Because, by then, I was hopeless. Ruined. All because I wanted to touch my cat one more time. Even if he was dead, he was still Maus.”
