Shadows of Asphodel Read Online Free PDF Page A

there. He wore a well-cut charcoal suit with an edelweiss pin at his lapel. He looked a bit sunburned, and she wondered if he had been somewhere faraway.
    “Oh,” Ardis said, flustered, “yes, I suppose so.”
    “Allow me to introduce myself.” The man smiled at her and bowed. “I’m Konstantin Falkenrath. And I didn’t mean to be so presumptuous, but I’m afraid this dining car is rather popular at this time of night.”
    “It’s fine.” Ardis unfolded her napkin. “I haven’t ordered yet.”
    “Are you dining alone?” Konstantin said.
    She hesitated, then wondered why. It wasn’t as if her and Wendel were going to dine together every night, or at all.
    “Yes,” she said. “Please, sit. And my name is Ardis.”
    “What a pretty name,” Konstantin said, and he looked at her when he said it.
    Ardis noticed the archmage’s eyes were sky blue, a shade that reminded her of summer.
    “ Ardis is derived from the same root as ardent ,” he said, “if I’m not mistaken.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” she said.
    She had chosen the name because it sounded right. But even after living for three years as Ardis, she would never forget her birth name. She was still Yu Lan inside, Jade Orchid, the Chinese word for the magnolia flower.
    “Where are you from?” Konstantin said.
    “America,” she said, since that was vague enough.
    “Oh? Which part?”
    Chinatown, San Francisco was the address she called home. She could still remember standing in the street and breathing in the confused perfume of fried restaurant food and cigar smoke and ever-present sandalwood incense.
    Ardis blinked away the memories. “California.”
    Konstantin nodded, and thankfully didn’t question her more.
    The waiter returned with Ardis’s water. “Anything for you, sir?”
    “I’ll have a gin and tonic,” Konstantin said, without even looking at the menu. “And I hear the asparagus and trout is excellent tonight.”
    “And you, ma’am?” said the waiter.
    Ardis opened the menu and stared at it, but it might as well have been written in ancient Greek. She put on a confident look.
    “The asparagus and trout as well,” she said.
    “Good choice,” Konstantin said.
    He had a warm smile, the kind that made Ardis return it without a thought.
    She nodded at his edelweiss pin. “You work for the archmages?”
    “I am an archmage,” he said.
    Konstantin steepled his fingers on the table, and Ardis sipped her water to cool her blush. To think that the man sitting across from her was one of her employers. Though she couldn’t remember hearing of Falkenrath.
    “Or I will be,” Konstantin said, “once I arrive in Vienna. Then it will all be official.”
    Ardis raised her eyebrows. “You must be one of the youngest archmages there.”
    He laughed and looked down at his fingers. “Yes,” he said. “Is it that obvious? I had hoped the beard would help.”
    “It does,” she said.
    He stroked his goatee and made a face. “Do you think I should aim for long and gray?”
    She laughed. “No.”
    “I have a few good decades left in me before that, I should hope.”
    She cocked her head. “I’m curious,” she said, “where you got that sunburn.”
    He smiled. “The Dodecanese.”
    “The what?”
    “The where.”
    Konstantin flipped the menu over. On the back, there was a map of European railways. His fingertip rested on the Mediterranean.
    “There,” he said, “in the Aegean Sea. Twelve marvelous islands called the Dodecanese. The water there is a remarkable turquoise.” He furrowed his brow. “Unfortunately, of course, the islands are still occupied by Italy.”
    “Why were you there?” Ardis said.
    He broke into a boyish grin. “The Hex.”
    She didn’t want to look ignorant, but she had to ask. “The Hex reaches that far?”
    He nodded enthusiastically. “Last year, when Italy invaded Tripoli, the Ottoman Empire turned to Austria-Hungary for help. The archmages pledged their aid and have been hard at work