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“You’re quite convincing.”
“I do my best.”
She was playing her part well—bed-bound but restless. She’d already called the front desk once. She would call down twice more throughout the day for hot water for tea. She would take a short walk around the block for air.
And check the notice board.
“If anyone tails you—”
“I’ll lose them. I’ve already planned two detours through the church gardens and back alley with the butcher’s bins. I’m not new, Condor.”
Sparrow never snapped, not at anyone. The sharpness in her tone belied the calmness of her features. It made my pulse spike, but there was nothing to be done for it. I nodded, not because I needed reassurance, but because she did.
Or maybe we both did.
I started to walk away, but her hand on my arm fixed me in place.
“Egret,” she began, then hesitated. “Do you . . . trust him?”
“To lie well? Yes,” I answered. “To behave? Not entirely. But he’ll get through it.”
“Right.” She let out a heavy sigh. “If they decide to detain him—”
“They won’t.”
She shot me a look. I knew it well. She didn’t believe that for a moment.
Neither did I.
We parted without ceremony. I headed for the tram, coat collar high, briefcase tucked under one arm, the city gray and frigid around me.
Everyone was somewhere now. Everyone was exposed.
Will was digging through false documents at the town hall, charming secretaries, dodging real questions with invented ones. Egret waltzed into the lion’s mouth—the cryptography division of the ÁVH, Hungary’s secret service—armed with nothing but a forged credential, a thousand facts about post-war cipher machines, and that grin that always landed just south of dangerous.
And Sparrow—she was the ghost in our story.
She watched the wall, watched the flyer.
She waited for a signal that might never come.
19
Will
TheBudapestTownHallhad all the warmth of a mausoleum and twice the paperwork.
The interior was vast and dim, lit by a few grudging bulbs and one grand chandelier that hadn’t been dusted since Horthy fell from grace. Paint peeled from every corner, and the stone walls carried the chill of a crypt. I half expected to find a clerk frozen into the floor, still clutching a carbon-copied form from 1934.
I’d been there seven minutes, and already my breath fogged in the stairwell.
The clerk at the main reception desk was a woman with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and an expression that suggested she’d personally survived multiple empires and hadn’t been impressed by a single one.
“Good morning,” I said, offering my most diplomatic smile. “I’m Hank Calloway of the U.S. State Department. I’m here to inquire about municipal power allocation decisions.”
She stared at me. Said nothing. Just blinked once.
Did she not speak English? Was I babbling into a wall?