Page 84

She appeared like she always did.
Sudden, unremarkable, and impossible to tell how she’d materialized.
Lark wore a drab wool coat and a scarf pulled too high with a cigarette perched in the corner of her mouth. She looked like a woman who hated the world, which, based on our previous interactions, was probably true.
She didn’t speak at first, just walked past me, brushing her hand against mine as she passed. I followed her into the back entrance of a pharmacy across the street. We hid behind shelving and watched out the front window for another five minutes before our breathing steadied. Beneath the flickering gaze of the aged pharmacist, a sympathizer on a Western payroll, we moved deeper into the shop. There, in an alcove between storerooms, I met her eyes.
“You flipped the sign early,” she said, voice like wet stone.
“I didn’t see another choice.”
“Neither did he,” she said, explaining nothing—and everything.
“What happened? There were three plainclothes and two teams of uniforms at the extraction site. Then our man missed the meet. Things could’ve gone very wrong.”
“Our friends are always watching. You know this.” She offered the most European shrug I’d ever seen.
I blinked a few times, struggling against the fury rising in my chest. Lark was on our side—I had to believe it—and yet, she appeared unaffected by the turn of events.
“The doctor’s daughter was taken. He refused to leave without her. I contacted your menagerie late last night and was instructed to give you this.”
She handed me a small tin labeled, “Zamárdi,” cough drops.
“From Manakin?”
She nodded.
I turned the tin over once in my palm. The weight of it felt too small for what it would carry.
“How much do you know?” I asked.
“Only what I’m told to know. You’re not the only one dancing on thin ice.”
I didn’t thank her. This was the job.
She left without another word, disappearing into the pharmacy’s front like she’d always belonged there.
I waited until I heard the bell over the door chime shut.
Then I left, too.
Back at the hotel, with Will looming over my shoulder, I cracked the seal on the tin, slipped the message from the false bottom, and set to decoding. The message was written in standard cipher block—one Manakin and I had practiced over dozens of missions. It was the kind I couldn’t forget even if I tried.
The message was terse.
KITCHEN IS EMPTY. CRACK EGG. SERVE AT FIVE. NO SALT.
I read it three times.
Will, still hovering, pointed to “No salt” and furrowed his brow.
I grabbed a notecard stamped with the hotel’s logo and scribbled, “He doesn’t know if we’ve been compromised or not, but assumes we have.”
Will’s eyes widened.
I returned my gaze to the note.
They weren’t pulling us. They weren’t sending backup. They were closing the chapter.