Clockwork Menagerie: A Shadows of Asphodel Novella (12 page)

“Friction.”

“
What
?”

“It’s such a troublesome phenomenon, the bane of physicists, but—”

Himmel bent to lick the length of him. “Continue.”

“God.” Gasping, Konstantin struggled to inhale. It took a moment to remember words. “But I like this friction best.”

Himmel took him into his mouth. His growl trembled through him. “Good.”

Konstantin knotted his fingers in Himmel’s hair, holding him there, trying not to push too hard, but the pressure kept building. The wet heat of his mouth, the light graze of his teeth; it was enough to make any man explode.

“Theodore. Please—”

Himmel sucked while pumping him in his hand. Konstantin held on for a millisecond longer before he shuddered, stuttering out a groan, and came in his mouth. Himmel swallowed every last drop and met his gaze.

Konstantin’s ribs worked as he fought to breathe. “Theodore, my God.”

Himmel smiled. “Something to remember me by.”

Pain gripped Konstantin’s throat. He dragged Himmel down beside him on the bed. If he held him close enough, perhaps he would never forget the feel of his skin. For a wild moment, he considered telling him the truth.

But Himmel could never know his destination. Not until this was over.

Konstantin thought of another way to say goodbye. His hand slipped between them and slid down Himmel’s stomach. He stroked him in his fist, slow at first, then fast and hard. Himmel closed his eyes, his face beautifully blank, and arched his hips. Sweat clung to his skin. He grunted, tensing, and jerked in his hand.

Afterward, Konstantin kissed him, tasting salt in his mouth. “How was that?”

“Unforgettable.”

Alone in the snowy evening, Konstantin walked through St. Petersburg. At the station, he bought a one-way ticket to Minsk, where he would change trains to Königsberg, Prussia. He felt nothing more than numb.

The train huffed into the station, a steam locomotive painted green. He lugged his suitcases aboard and found a seat in third class, where he hoped to be inconspicuous. Countess Victorova wanted him gone; surely she wouldn’t stop him now. After a tense minute, the train lurched along the tracks, rattling as it accelerated. Smoke clouded Konstantin’s window, St. Petersburg a smudge of light and shadows.

Bracing himself on the back of seats, the conductor navigated the swaying corridor. Konstantin gripped his ticket and passport in his sweaty hand. He no longer had the protection of a diplomatic passport or immunity.

“Passport?” said the conductor.

Konstantin handed him the battered little book. The conductor stared at the double-headed eagle on the cover, the heraldry of Austria-Hungary, an enemy of the Russian Empire. His dark eyebrows descended. He glanced at Konstantin, flipped open the passport, and inspected the photograph pasted inside.

“I’m returning from business in St. Petersburg,” Konstantin said. “Matters of diplomacy.”

Shaking his head, the conductor punched his ticket and handed it back. He trudged onward to the next passenger. Exhaling, Konstantin returned the passport to his pocket. Clearly, they didn’t care if he exited the country.

Returning, on the other hand, might be risky.

From his coat, he fished out a red leather notebook, where he often scribbled down his latest thoughts and hypotheses for experiments. He sketched the clockwork dragon, from memory, concentrating on its eyes. Siberian chrysoberyl. The same gemstone as the eyes of the black bear in the clockwork menagerie.

I understand the countess intended it as a gift for the count’s birthday, though the poor fellow bit the dust prior to the occasion.

Psychothaumaturgy required a soul captured at the moment of death.

Countess Victorova pretended to be a sweet widow, but suspicion festered in Konstantin. She must have scheduled her husband’s unfortunate demise, a convenient yacht accident where he drowned under the ice. The combination of water and cold would be ideal; a slow death, with technomancy waiting to capture his soul.

At first, Konstantin considered tinkering with the clockwork, to make the dead speak, but he wasn’t a necromancer. The soul of the late count had degraded into a fragment of energy, a battery for a grotesque dancing bear.

He would have to reverse time itself.

“
Chai
?” A redheaded attendant smiled at him.

He understood that word, and tea would be most welcome. “
Da
.”

She poured him a cup. He handed her a coin in return. Sipping the steaming drink, he gazed out the window, heat pooled in his stomach. Himmel had been all business when they parted, but he could see the pain in his eyes.

God, he hoped this would work. The sooner, the better, so he could return.

Konstantin had only a foggy idea where the frontlines were between the empires of Russia and Germany. He considered asking the attendant for a newspaper, though he doubted any of them would be written in German. When the Russians last attacked Königsberg, the Germans killed the clockwork dragon and drove back the invading army. But Prussia still wasn’t safe, and tensions elsewhere had escalated.

Serbia chafed under the control of Austria-Hungary; Serbia’s ally, Russia, declared war after discovering Austria’s development of Eisenkriegers. The Archmages of Vienna claimed they built the metal giants as a precautionary defense, but the Kaiser himself requested an army of Eisenkriegers for the German Empire. He wondered when France would enter the fray. They would love revenge, after losing the last war.

All of Europe was a mess of alliances, each country eager to defend its honor.

As the train rattled through endless snowy trees, Konstantin’s eyelids drooped. His bones outweighed lead. He hadn’t slept much lately, and Himmel wasn’t quite helping. With a faint smile, he closed his eyes, just for a second.

“Last stop, Minsk!”

The conductor’s shout startled Konstantin awake. He lurched to his feet and buttoned his coat while stumbling down the corridor to his suitcases. Hopping from the train, he blinked at the mist and steam clouding the morning.

So this was Minsk. Where the hell was his next train?

Konstantin hauled his suitcases down the platform. The train from St. Petersburg belched burnt coal before chugging from the station.

“There you are!” he muttered, earning a few curious glances.

Frost spiderwebbed the windows of the train to Königsberg. It waited two platforms over, puffing clouds that floated over the medieval rooftops of Minsk. He squinted at a bird of prey over the station. A golden eagle, feathers glittering in the sun, wheeling in the sky with mechanical precision. Searching for something.

Or someone.

Balanced by a suitcase in each hand, Konstantin raced to his next train and hurdled inside the nearest car. He collided with a conductor, who gave him a disapproving glare. Though he hadn’t seen the golden eagle’s eyes, he knew they had to be clockwork. Siberian chrysoberyl. Another pet of the countess.

He had to act fast, before she deduced his plans.

Konstantin didn’t sleep on the train from Minsk to Königsberg. At the station, Prussian border guards checked identification and searched baggage. A soldier gawked at Konstantin’s passport. “Archmage, welcome back!”

“Thank you.” He didn’t bother correcting the soldier. Waved onward by the patrol, he lugged his suitcases down the platform.

Cathedral bells chimed over Königsberg. Everyone glanced skyward. An alarm.

Dread soured Konstantin’s stomach. “Excuse me.” He elbowed his way through the crowd, picking up speed. His suitcases seemed to grow heavier and heavier. A metallic eagle’s scream echoed between buildings.

Had he led the enemy here? It was only a matter of time before Russia attacked again. They had a big enough army to besiege Königsberg. And there was the laboratory. What if they wanted to recover the clockwork dragon?

Gasping, Konstantin stopped at the corner and tried to flag down a cab with no hands. The driver didn’t slow, so he dropped a suitcase and whistled with his fingers. At the earsplitting sound, the driver swerved to the curb.

Konstantin shoved his luggage at the man. “Take me to the shipyard. Quickly.”

“Yes, sir.” The driver sounded brisk, though he glanced at the sky.

Bells gonged louder as they passed the cathedral. A zeppelin droned over the city, scouting for the advancing enemy. Konstantin grimaced, remembering how the clockwork dragon shredded airships with its claws.

In the shipyard, the waters of the lagoon looked deceptively placid. Konstantin paid the driver and hauled his suitcases to the laboratory. He still had the key to the back door. When he peeked inside, his heartbeat leapt into a higher gear. A storm of activity whirled inside the building, focused around the Colossus, the biggest of the Eisenkriegers. The battlescarred steel giant towered over scurrying engineers.

Konstantin waited for a lull in the activity before stepping inside. The technomancy equipment he needed should be in a storage room at the back. That lab assistant, Heinrich, spotted him. “Archmage Konstantin!”

Had no one bothered to tell them the bad news?

Konstantin ignored Heinrich’s hopeful grin. He needed to get the equipment and get out. Hands sweating, he fought with the lock on the storage room, then realized he had the wrong key. Those damn bells kept ringing.

“Sir?” Heinrich hovered at his elbow. “How can I help?”

“Take this to my cot.” Konstantin handed him a suitcase of nonessentials—he wouldn’t need a change of clothes if he were dead.

“Yes, sir!”

Konstantin cringed. Was he ever this overenthusiastic as an intern? Heinrich acted like this were a field trip, not an attack by the Imperial Russian Army. The key clicked in the lock. Inside the storage room at last, he hunted down the equipment required for his experiment in revenge: gauntlets for focusing the temporal magic, as well as the unorthodox, unsafe catalyzer he had been tinkering with on his days off.

Most crucial of all, he needed a portable source of energy.

Konstantin glanced over his shoulder. The oldest of the Eisenkriegers, a battered prototype nicknamed Fritz, waited along the wall. Damn, the Archmages of Vienna would definitely have his head for this.

But there wasn’t a better way. He stacked the equipment outside the room, marched over to the Eisenkrieger, and unlatched the cockpit. Everything seemed to be in order. He scooted around to the hatch in the back, estimated its capacity, and grabbed the catalyzer. His arms strained under the weight of steel and glass.

Of course, one of the pilots recognized him.

Natalya Volkova’s boots rapped on the steel platform. “Archmage Konstantin.” Her Russian accent, however slight, always took Konstantin by surprise, even though she had proved her loyalty through years of service.

“Volkova.” He nodded. “I just returned from Russia.”

“Do we have orders to move out?”

He kept his back toward Natalya, so she wouldn’t see him blush. “I’m commandeering this Eisenkrieger to investigate.”

She cleared her throat. “You need a pilot?”

“No, thank you.” He strode back to the storage room, snagging a pair of protective goggles before carting over an armful of wires. “Need to do reconnaissance on the Russians. Saw a clockwork eagle on the way over.”

“Christ.” Natalya thinned her lips. “Tell us what you find. The pilots need to know.”

Konstantin loaded everything into the back of the Eisenkrieger before climbing into the cockpit. He lowered himself into an exoskeleton, a harness of steel and buckles linking the pilot’s body to the machine. When he slipped his feet into the boots and straightened, his head knocked against the back of the cockpit.

“Stupid tiny prototype,” he muttered.

Vienna insisted the size of the cockpit wasn’t an issue; they kept hiring women as pilots. He gave a longing glance to the Colossus, though he could hardly steal
that
without all hell breaking loose.

When he twisted the key in the ignition, the steel giant woke from its slumber.

Humming vibrated from the Eisenkrieger’s engine as it warmed. He dusted off the glowing green dials and checked each of the twitching needles. Everything seemed to be functioning within normal parameters.

Her arms folded, Natalya peered at him. “Stay safe.”

Guilt twisted his gut. “You, too.”

His plan sickened him: escaping with an Eisenkrieger before battle. If he succeeded, however, he could save them all.