48

Will

W e were really going to do it: disguise ourselves as pilgrims—nuns and orphans, priests and sinners—and walk our way across the border like we were players in some medieval fable.

It sounded mad.

But it might also be the only plan mad enough to work.

The house creaked as Sparrow moved in the kitchen. I heard the clink of a tin mug, the grind of spoon against ceramic, and Egret’s low voice asking if there was any more of the god-awful chicory coffee.

I eased away from Thomas, brushing a kiss against his forehead before I slipped from the room. Sparrow stood barefoot at the stove in a stolen cardigan, her hair twisted up and still damp from a cold rinse. Egret was perched on the countertop like he’d grown roots there, boots swinging.

“Morning,” I muttered.

“You mean strategically ambiguous middle-of-daylight,” Sparrow replied, handing me a mug of something bitter and hot. I hefted the mug in salute.

“We calling this breakfast?” Egret asked.

“We’re calling it not dead. It’s tasty. You should enjoy it,” Sparrow said.

I nodded toward the back door. “What’s our status?”

“I haven’t seen any patrols nearby,” Egret said. “I watched through the attic vent. It gives a decent view of the surrounding neighborhood. The streets are sleepy, but I suspect checkpoints have doubled on the ’Pest side.”

I sipped. “How are we even going to get to the pilgrimage group?”

“That’s the part I’m working on,” Sparrow said, drying her hands. “But first, I’m going to run an errand.”

Egret raised an eyebrow. “Define errand.”

She gave him a smile so sweet I didn’t trust it. “Just a quick visit to someone who owes me a favor.”

“And this someone wouldn’t happen to have state-rationed opiates?”

Her smile widened. “I guess we’ll see.”

She slipped out before anyone could stop her.

By midafternoon, I’d started pacing. Again.

Thomas hadn’t eaten much, and every time he shifted, I saw the pain twist through him like barbed wire. Egret tried distracting him with logistics, with bus schedules, priestly aliases, the existential horror of nun habits—but he struggled to focus.

Then the door creaked open.

Sparrow entered like she always did—zero drama, just a sudden presence. Her coat was slung over one shoulder, boots caked in mud, hair frizzy from the cold. She dropped a small brown bottle into Thomas’s lap without a word.

I looked down, then up. “What . . . is this?”

“Relief,” she said, grinning.

I blinked. “Where the hell did you get it?”

Sparrow smirked. “Let’s just say Dr. Sárosi at the clinic on Váci út is very concerned for my spiritual health. I may have convinced him that I was plagued by nightly visions and unrelenting fever. Poor man practically offered to carry me home.”

Egret, from the open doorway, sounded incredulous—or jealous. It was a fine line. “You seduced a doctor for drugs?”

“Don’t be crude,” she said, pulling off her gloves. “I seduced a nurse . The doctor just signed the paperwork.”

Thomas laughed, then winced. From the look on his face, his shoulder didn’t appreciate the humor.

Sparrow winked at him. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

It felt as though the entire city was staring at us, watching our every move, pointing an accusing, bitter finger in our direction. Every street corner we passed, every alleyway shadow we skirted, every glint of glass in a second-story window—it all felt like it was glaring, like the Soviets had stretched Budapest on a rack and were tightening it one notch each day.

We left Thomas, Farkas, and Eszter at the safe house with strict orders to stay out of sight. Thomas had enough codeine in his system to actually listen for once—or he was too high to argue. Either way, I doubted he would leave his bed. Eszter had posted herself at the window with a set of rosary beads, watching through a tiny sliver between the curtains for anyone with a too-crisp uniform. I had no idea what she thought she’d do if one appeared, but the watching kept her mind occupied, and I supposed that was a good thing.

Sparrow and I peeled off together after Egret ducked into a tram headed toward the Danube side of town. He had a contact there—a Romanian who called himself “Hollywood” because he made disguises even America’s cultural elites would envy. According to Egret, the man had everything from makeup to wigs to prosthetics I hadn’t even seen the OSS put to good use. We’d have to take a full accounting and ensure Arty and his team learned as many of his tricks as possible.

My one lingering concern about Egret’s part of the mission was how he would cajole the man for supplies given our lack of money for bribes, but I left him to his own devices. Egret could be rather persuasive when he chose to turn up the charm—or use his overly muscled frame for the greater good.

Sparrow and I had a different mission: clothes.

“Religious garb isn’t something you can just buy off a rack, especially if you want it to look convincing,” she said as we cut through the market square, her scarf tucked under her chin. “People know the difference. If we wear anything that looks off, we’ll stand out faster than Egret at a ballet recital.”

“For the love of God, could you avoid planting mental images like that?” I quipped.

She grinned and stabbed me with her elbow, making me stagger a bit as we strode down the sidewalk.

“Please tell me we’re not stealing some priest’s frock,” I said after a moment of silent walking. “I’d rather not burn in hell for holy theft.”

“No. We’re not.” She snorted. “Besides, if we were, we wouldn’t be stealing; we’re liberating them . . . from Soviet oppression.”

That’s how we ended up in a small tailoring shop in Budapest, sitting beside a coal stove while Sparrow spun the story of a traveling theater troupe performing a morality play in Sopron. The seamstress was maybe sixty, with beady eyes and a mouth like a folded knife. She puffed smoke from a crooked cigarette and eyed us over her spectacles.

Her Russian was almost as broken as our nonexistent Hungarian. “You nun’s habit, priests’ robes, and travel wear for . . . mute child?”

“The play is very avant-garde,” Sparrow said, stunning me at her sudden burst of multi-syllabic Cyrillic. “Catholic surrealism.”

“I don’t like church,” the woman said. “Too judgy. Incense stinks.”

I patted my breast pocket—my empty pocket. “You’ll like our money.”

The woman grunted and stood. “Tomorrow at closing. Bring child if you want fit. I need measurements.”

Sparrow and I exchanged a glance, then she said, “We have little time. Between rehearsals and travel, we need to leave soon. The girl is small, about this tall.” She gestured with a hand. “She is thin, too thin.”

The woman puffed a breath so deep I thought she might explode before releasing it. “Fine. No measuring. But you no be angry with fit.”

“We no be angry,” I said, unable to resist poking at her grammar.

Sparrow elbowed me, a habit she seemed to be forming.

The woman nodded once, her face the very image of confusion. She’d completely missed my teasing.

As we stepped outside, Sparrow grinned. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m not wearing anything that itches.”

“Given your history, a priest’s robe will probably burst into flames the moment you put it on.”

When our feet hit the sidewalk, all humor evaporated. We moved fast but casual, with our coats cinched tight against both cold and prying eyes. We said nothing, not even to each other. It was the kind of quiet that came from training—not nerves.

But even trained nerves had their limits.

We turned down a side street and froze halfway through the crossing. Two figures stood near a lamppost, talking low in clipped Hungarian. Shadows warped shapes. One held a cigarette that glowed in the gray morning light.

Sparrow’s hand brushed mine—not for comfort, just confirmation, as if to say, “I see it, too.”

I nodded once.

We backtracked silently, ducked through an alley, and emerged two streets over.

A tram clattered by—too loud. The sound chased away the silence but didn’t settle the air.

Another street.

Another corner.

A figure stood alone at a crosswalk. He wore a suit of dark blue, not the pressed olive we dreaded.

Still, we paused and assessed, then veered to avoid him.

By the time we reached the café, I’d counted six near heart attacks, one soldier, and too many shadows that moved wrong.

Sparrow yanked the door open like it owed her money.

Egret looked up from a table near the corner and raised a brow. He spoke in Russian for the benefit of anyone listening. “Did you two take the scenic route?”

Sparrow tossed her scarf onto a chair. “You want to walk the rest of this city with a target on your back? Be my guest.”

He chuckled and slid a coffee across the table.

“I like this version of you,” he said. “Witty. Sexy as hell. Slightly murderous.”

Sparrow deadpanned, “Don’t worry. I’m saving the murder.”

I didn’t laugh. Not yet. My heart was still somewhere back on Andrássy, hiding in a shadow and waiting to see if it lived.

Sparrow downed the last of Egret’s coffee, and we lingered only long enough to not look suspicious. We were just three friends meeting for a quick mug of warmth on a cold, blustery day.

We moved fast through the final blocks, sticking to shadows and side streets, each of us watching different angles as if the city itself might pounce. The earlier tension stabbing between my shoulder blades hadn’t faded, just folded itself into silence.

Even Egret had gone quiet. That somehow made everything feel worse.

When we reached the safe house, Sparrow rapped twice, paused, then once more—the rhythm we’d agreed on. A moment later, the door cracked open. Eszter peeked through the narrow slit, then yanked it open with surprising strength.

“You took too long,” she said, her features stern and somehow adorable at the same time.

“We always do,” Sparrow muttered, sliding past her but pausing long enough to grip the girl’s shoulder appreciatively.

I followed, with Egret bringing up the rear.

Inside, the air was heavy with steam and the bite of boiled onions. Someone had tried to make soup. I was surprised to find that Thomas had moved to lie on the couch. He sat propped upright with a book he wasn’t reading through glassy eyes I doubted saw much more than fuzzy outlines and muted colors. His gaze flicked to me and magically sharpened, scanning for damage.

“Unshot,” I said, holding up both hands and spinning around like some fashion model on a runway.

“Better than me,” he said, though no grin reached his lips.

Farkas stood at the far end of the room. His arms were crossed, and he paced a line in the old rug like he’d worn it thin. He looked at the door, then at Eszter, then at us. He didn’t speak.

I dropped the shopping bags filled with makeup and wigs onto the coffee table beside Thomas.

He opened it, peered inside, then raised an eyebrow. “These are . . . alarmingly good.”

“You’re welcome,” Egret said, flopping into the armchair like he hadn’t just evaded military patrols on two sides of the river. “I had to promise to avenge a man’s honor to get them.”

“You didn’t,” I said.

“It was implied.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry. He has no honor, so I owe him nothing.”

Sparrow stepped forward and pulled a folded scrap of paper from her coat. “We’ve got vestments in the works. The tailor thinks we’re staging a religious play, and I may have oversold the art direction. She wanted Eszter tomorrow evening for a fitting.”

Farkas scowled. “Out of the house?”

“I told her we were in a rush, gave her a rough estimate of Eszter’s size,” Sparrow said. “There’s no way I was risking her just to have a better-fitting tunic.”

Farkas didn’t answer, but his jaw clenched like he was biting back the worst response he could think of. He looked at Eszter. She gave him a single nod. That girl had more steel in her bones than some agents I’d worked with for years.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Where’s the pilgrimage leaving from?”

“Church of the Sacred Heart,” I said. “Three days from now. The priest is known to let in late arrivals if they have the right paperwork. We’ll show up morning-of, where I’ll introduce us as new recruits under letter from the bishop. You’re injured. Farkas is silent. Eszter plays the sweet mute niece. Sparrow’s the nun. Egret’s . . . trying to be less Egret-like.”

“Tall order,” Thomas said.

“I’m versatile,” Egret replied.

I bit back the easy joke.

Farkas stopped his pacing and sat. “I still think this is madness.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “But so was coming here to get you out. So is staying here. So is trying to fight them. So is any plan we haven’t already watched fall apart.”

Thomas looked at me then with that calm, assessing stare I’d seen a hundred times across briefing tables and war-torn alleys.

“It will work,” he said. “If the crowd’s big enough, if we blend well enough, if no one gets curious.”

“The Soviets are always curious,” Farkas said.

“No one ever said miracles weren’t part of the plan,” Sparrow replied.

Thomas chuckled. “Just don’t expect me to walk too far. I’ve only got one good arm and half a bottle of happy juice.”

“You walking in pain, maybe with a little limp, will play into our roles,” Sparrow said. “We’re just simple folk going on a religious journey, nothing more.”

“And you’ve got me,” I said. “That’s at least a third of a miracle.”

“God, I’m going to be sick,” Egret snarked.

Sparrow chuckled.

Eszter shot Egret an annoyed snarl only a teenager could muster.