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We ordered another bottle. Will poured it slowly, talking less now. Thomas checked his watch.
At nine thirty, I leaned back in my chair and said, too casually, “He’s late.”
Thomas said nothing.
Will tried, “Could be caught in traffic.”
I shrugged with casual indifference my heart refused to feel. “Could be.”
None of us believed it.
Egret should’ve been back hours ago. He should’ve sent a signal. A message. A look.
Something.
I stabbed at my food again. It had gone cold.
By ten o’clock, the mood had shifted. The warmth was still there—in the lights, in the food, in the music drifting from a battered radio near the bar—but we weren’t part of it anymore.
We were three figures at a table for four.
Will drummed his fingers on his glass. Thomas sat too still, his fingers fiddling with his watch like he thought it might leap off his wrist. I stared out a nearby window, hoping to see a shadow darken its frame.
“Maybe he was followed,” Will said eventually.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Or detained,” Thomas said, his jaw clenched.
“We don’t guess yet,” I snapped, more sharply than intended. “We don’t assume.”
But I already had.
I knew Egret. He was late to breakfast, late to briefings, late to shave, but not to rendezvous, not to dinner.
Not to me.
The empty chair sat like a gaping wound in the corner of my vision.
And I hated how quickly my heart began to mourn.
22
Egret
Sparrowsatwithherback to the fire, chin in her hand, her eyes fixed on the untouched wineglass in front of her. She looked like she’d been carved out of worry and stubbornness. I could see the weight in her shoulders from across the room.
Will saw me first. His brow lifted in that disbelieving, infuriating, “Where the hell have you been?” way that only he could manage while still looking like he might hug you. Thomas, of course, didn’t move. He just looked up, cold and still, already calculating what my entrance meant, what I’d done wrong.
I stepped inside.
Every inch of me hurt. The fabric of my shirt pulled on one shoulder. My ribs protested with every breath, and my fingers were still tingling from the way I’d had to brace myself in that goddamn utility closet.
But I smiled anyway.
“Did I miss dessert?”
Three sets of eyes gaped. They were three different shades of fury, relief, and fear.