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My guy.
Egret’s eyes snapped to hers, and a most un-Egret-like smile curled his lips. For a moment, I thought I was staring at some character from a romance novel by how bright his eyes sparkled in the table’s candlelight.
Sparrow beamed beneath his gaze, finally reaching over and rubbing his arm.
“God, I think I might be sick,” Thomas said.
“Please.” Egret rolled his eyes. “After all the times we had topretendto not notice you two mooning over each other.”
“Mooning?” I protested. “I never mooned—”
“Fawning is more like it,” Sparrow added through a smirk. “If you two stared any harder, your clothes might fall off.”
Egret barked a laugh.
Thomas snorted and shook his head.
I blushed and shrank down in my seat.
17
Sparrow
Thecoldhadteethby the time we stepped out of the restaurant.
The warmth and chatter of the dining room clung to my coat like a memory, but the moment the door shut behind us, it vanished into the wind. The city pressed in around us—soot-smudged buildings, dim pools of yellow light from cracked lampposts, the shiver of footsteps echoing off stone.
Budapest after dark—after the war—was a city of held breath.
Will and Thomas peeled away with quiet efficiency, murmuring something to each other as they turned down the street toward their hotel. Thomas didn’t look back. Will did, just once, a small nod in my direction, a kind of wish for luck without words.
Then it was just the two of us.
Egret stood beside me on the curb, his broad shoulders hunched beneath his ill-fitting coat, hands jammed into his pockets. He didn’t say anything right away, just looked down the road where my cab was supposed to appear.
The silence between us wasn’t awkward.
It was worse than that.
It was familiar.
We were always saying goodbye.
Sometimes it was between trains. Sometimes between assignments.
Sometimes with bruises hidden beneath our sleeves, or blood still drying on our hands.
But somehow, this one felt heavier.
Because this time, he wasn’t coming with me.
A taxi rounded the corner, its headlights cutting a narrow path across the wet cobbles. It was still half a block away.
I glanced at him. “You’ll go straight back?”
He nodded. “Same ole drill. Walk slow, take two turns, and smile for the invisible camera.”
“And if someone follows you?”