Shadows of Asphodel by Karen Kincy Page A

, and do it to bring them back.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “The dead were once the living.”
    “Once,” she said. “Past tense. You… you undo what shouldn’t be undone.”
    “Before you get too sanctimonious,” he said, “let me tell you a story.”
    “Sanctimonious?”
    “Yes,” he said, “sanctimonious.”
    They stared at each other through the doorway. Ardis clenched her hands. Wendel’s face was shadowed, but she saw fire in his eyes. She stepped aside to let him into the cabin, and to prove she wasn’t intimidated by him.
    “Sit,” he said, and he shut the door. “This isn’t that long of a story.”
    She did as he said, her jaw clenched.
    Wendel sat opposite her and stared out the window at some distant point.
    “There was a cat,” he said. “A kitten, really. I had him when I was little, and I named him Maus. My mother made me keep him in the stables. She didn’t like 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.”
    “What do cats and horses have to do with anything?” Ardis said.
    Wendel silenced her with a raised hand. “I went looking for Maus. 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.”
    Ardis kept her face stony, but her eyes were stinging.
    “When I petted Maus,” he said quietly, “he woke up.”
    “You didn’t know, did you?”
    “I didn’t.” Wendel swallowed hard. “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.”
    Ardis hesitated. “How old were you?”
    “Eleven. That was a month before they said goodbye.”
    “When they sent you to the Order of the Asphodel?”
    “Yes.” He laughed with immense bitterness. “Because, by then, I was hopeless. Ruined. But do you at least understand why I did it? I wanted to touch my cat one more time. Even if he was dead, he was still Maus.”
    Ardis forced herself to look Wendel in the eye. A vague ache lingered in her stomach. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and looked out the window. Why was it so hard to say what she really wanted to say?
    “Did you hate yourself for it?” she asked at last. “Do you still?”
    “I won’t lie,” Wendel said. “When I first discovered my talent for raising the dead, I was… unhappy. But I learned to appreciate it.”
    “In what way?” she said.
    “Necromancy is fascinating,” he murmured. “There’s a certain repulsive elegance about the magic. With it, I can recover memories long lost. I can speak to the dead who left this world days, weeks, even centuries ago.”
    His eyes gleamed in the dusk, and she wasn’t sure it was sadness for his childhood pet. She thought she heard pride in his voice.
    Then he looked at her, and he smirked.
    “If I’m an abomination,” he said, “I might as well enjoy it.”
    “And you expect me not to be sanctimonious?” she said, but she couldn’t help smiling.
    “I do tend to bring that out in people,” he said flippantly. “I aim to please.”
    “Please who?” she said.
    “Those whose fancy the repulsively elegant.”
    “Or despicably handsome?”
    A slow grin spread on Wendel’s face. “That too.”
    Ardis cleared her throat. She was not about to admit that she found him handsome. Unless she already had, which was a mistake. Clearly he knew about his good looks, considering how much he resorted to charm. Not that she found him charming.
    But after so much banter, he had reacted so badly to her touching his hand.
    “Why?” she muttered.
    “Pardon?” he said.
    She blinked a few times. “Nothing,” she said.
    Wendel nodded, though there was a tightness around his eyes. Ardis stood and tugged her jacket straight brusquely.
    “I had better check on