Shadows of Asphodel by Karen Kincy Page B

Konstantin,” she said. “Since I technically take orders from him.”
    When her hand closed on the door handle, Wendel walked behind her. She heard him sigh, felt his breath stir her hair.
    “Ardis,” he said.
    She faced him and saw him offering his hand as if to shake it. He had a half-smile on his face, but his pale eyes said so much more that she didn’t understand. She decided to play it safe, and clasped his hand for a brisk shake.
    “There,” he said. “Truce?”
    She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware we were at war.”
    His half-smile became a whole one. “Touché.”
    Touché. To touch. She wasn’t sure if he meant that to be a pun, or if he knew how different it was to touch him like this. A handshake seemed so banal for who he was, knowing what magic crawled beneath his skin.
    Ardis slipped her fingers from his. “You know where to find me.”
    Wendel nodded.
    As she closed the door behind her, she realized the look in his eyes was one of regret, and she desperately wanted to know why. She wanted to tell him the truth. She hadn’t touched him out of pity, or practicality, but because she had felt for him.
    But it was too late. The moment had passed.

Konstantin stood in a circle of trees near the train. The sun lifted itself above the horizon, and shafts of brilliant light lanced the fog. The archmage squinted at Ardis as she approached, and lowered a pair of aviator goggles over his eyes.
    “Watch your step!” he called out. “My preparations are nearly complete.”
    Ardis stopped in her tracks and took in the scene.
    A dozen or so passengers clustered around the archmage. Gentleman, mostly, their cigar smoke curlicuing into the frigid air, but a few ladies, too, chattering and fanning themselves as if waiting for a show to start. A flighty lady in a fox-fur coat nearly stepped on a bloody splatter in the snow and shrieked for the benefit of the men.
    “Your preparations for the Hex?” Ardis shouted to Konstantin.
    “Don’t meander too close,” a gray-bearded gentleman told her. “I’m afraid this is rather too complicated for a feminine mind.”
    She glared at him. “Do I look very feminine?”
    Konstantin waved her forward impatiently. “Ardis, come closer. Just be careful not to step on the quicksilver or the selenite.”
    “What does selenite look like?” she said.
    “It’s a clear crystal,” he said. “Looks rather like ice.”
    She glanced around and saw that he had drawn a vast triangle in quicksilver. The mirrored liquid quivered on the surface of the snow. At the three points of the triangle, he had planted clear crystals, each nearly a foot long.
    “Can I step over it?” she said.
    “Of course.” Konstantin nodded. “Nothing is active right now.”
    Ardis stretched her leg over the quicksilver and stepped into the triangle. She squinted at the nearest crystal and resisted the urge to nudge it with the toe of her boot. This all seemed awfully mystical for repairing the Hex.
    Maybe this was why Wendel was so scornful of the archmages.
    “Do you need help?” Ardis said. “I don’t know any magic, of course.”
    “Oh, that isn’t a problem,” he said.
    Konstantin waved her closer. She noticed he wore leather-and-steel bracers that left his fingers bare—armor common archmages, though she admittedly knew little about their function. In the center of the triangle, he had set up an inconspicuous apparatus about the size of a bread box, constructed of steel and polished maple wood. Brass knobs circled a glass window that flickered violet-white with caged magic.
    “The quicksilver and crystals are for show,” Konstantin said. “ This is the true magic.”
    “That?” Ardis said.
    “This allows me to direct the magic along specific frequencies and harmonize with the existing structure of the Hex.”
    Ardis suspected he wouldn’t explain things any clearer than that, so she nodded.
    “As for you,” he said, “make sure nobody wanders too near. Very soon