Page 51

51

Thomas

T he hills had never felt taller. Not when I’d been younger, not in the war, not even limping through occupied towns under the weight of lies.

Now, with every step, they felt insurmountable.

We reached the crest of one just before dusk, the kind of rolling rise that would’ve been picturesque in spring, but now, under the bleak iron sky, it was just one more damn hill to survive.

Will walked beside me again, slower than usual, trying not to let me catch him watching.

But he was. He always did.

I knew the rhythm of his concern—how he glanced sideways every seven paces, how he shifted his pack to position himself between me and the road’s edge.

I hated that he could see it.

The truth of it.

I was done.

There were no more painkillers, no more antibiotics, no more clean bandages. Only the same re-wrapped strips that now smelled of iron and damp linen. The wound throbbed beneath them like a second heartbeat, every pulse sending a whisper of heat up my neck. I didn’t think I was running a fever again, but in the cold of our journey, it was hard to tell.

I’d been hiding it. At least, I thought I was hiding it.

But now my knees betrayed me, stuttering every dozen steps. Sweat broke across my brow despite the cold, coated my back, soaked through my undershirt. I kept my right arm folded tight against my chest, cradling the shoulder beneath its makeshift sling. The weight of the cassock clung like chain mail.

The pilgrims, an amoeba-like mass, with bumping shoulders and staggering gaits, lumbered along. Many of the older travelers struggled nearly as much as I had, yet none dropped out of the caravan. Their faith sustained them, even when their bodies rebelled.

Ahead, out of the rolling expanse of nothingness that was the Hungarian countryside, another church appeared. It was little more than a box of whitewashed stone, a sloping roof patched with timber and prayer, and a squat bell tower that looked like a chimney. Smoke rose from a stove inside, and I could already hear murmured voices, the rustle of straw being spread out in the nave.

We’d arrived at our next waypoint, but I couldn’t bring myself to move another step.

Will stopped.

His hand pressed into my back, gently, the warmth of it bleeding through the fabric like sunlight through frost. “Just a few more meters.”

I nodded, though I didn’t speak. I couldn’t, not while gritting my teeth and trying to mask it with a forced smile.

Inside the chapel, the others were already settling. Sparrow had found Eszter and Farkas a corner with a blanket and a crust of bread. Egret leaned against a pew, one shoe and sock discarded nearby, as he rubbed at a blister.

I stumbled once on the threshold—just once—and Will caught me so fast I barely registered the ground shifting. His arm came around my waist, holding me up as we staggered to a patch of straw near a wall. He lowered me slowly, carefully, like I might break—or had already broken.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I whispered.

“I’m not,” he said, already digging through the pack we shared, the pack that held the codeine. We both knew it was empty. “I’m just counting how many ways I’ll murder you if you try walking before tomorrow.”

I managed another weak smile, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “Nothing left, is there?”

He shook his head. “Not even a cough drop.”

I looked up at the cracked beams above us, listened to the murmur of prayers, of sleep settling in around the room like fog.

“I’m okay,” I lied.

“You’re not,” he said, kneeling beside me, brushing hair from my forehead. We were surrounded by deeply religious folk in a country whose views on our relationship were far from accepting, yet he couldn’t— wouldn’t resist offering me comfort.

His fingers came away damp. “You’re burning up.”

I closed my eyes. “It’s the robes. They trap heat like a stone oven.”

He didn’t laugh.

I opened my eyes again and saw it in his—the panic behind the patience, the fear trying so hard to stay quiet, and I hated that I was the one putting it there.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered again, this time just for him.

He leaned forward to press his forehead against mine, then remembered our surroundings and pulled back.

“Then stop pretending. Just . . . let me worry. You don’t have to be . . . you-know-what tonight. Just rest and be mine.”

I let out a breath and let him pull the blanket over me, let the world fade a little as the pain turned dull and heavy.

He wanted me to forget our job, forget that we’d just smuggled a vital inventor out from beneath the watchful gaze of the Soviets, forget that I was an American spy in a Red state, and just what? Fall into his arms and sleep?

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t need to.

Instead, I followed part of his instructions and drifted off.

Hours later—I had no idea how many—I woke to near total darkness.

The chapel creaked as it breathed.

The walls held in the warmth of too many bodies pressed against each other, layered with straw and threadbare blankets. Someone near the altar snored lightly. An ancient woman stretched out by the lectern whispered a rosary with cracked lips, the sound just low enough to feel like breath.

We were tucked into the corner farthest from the main aisle. The darkness wrapped us in fragile privacy. I blinked a few times, then struggled to sit up, to press my back to the cold stone wall and prop myself into a less painful position. Will sat to my right, his shoulder close enough to brush against mine. Sparrow kneeled across from us with her legs folded beneath her. Egret lounged beside her like a priest waiting for his day’s last confession, his arms crossed behind his head.

“How many more days?” Sparrow asked, her voice so low it barely disturbed the air.

“Two,” I said. “We slip off when the group stops for evening prayers in Szentgyorgyvolgy. It’s close enough to the Rába. Quiet enough.”

She nodded, not looking at me. “And you’ll be ready?”

Will tensed beside me. I felt it like a vibration under my ribs.

“I’ll manage,” I said.

Sparrow’s gaze flicked to Will, then back to me. “It’s not about managing. You’re burning up. You stumbled three times today, and I caught Egret watching you limp.”

“I wasn’t limping.”

“You were,” Egret added, without opening his eyes. “It was either a limp or interpretive dance.”

Will’s voice came low, tight. “He’s fine. He’ll be fine.”

Sparrow didn’t argue, but her face softened. “I’m not accusing. I’m trying to plan.”

Plan. That word used to mean logistics or maps, radio codes or rendezvous points.

Now it meant: How do we smuggle a brilliant little girl, a limping scientist, and a half-conscious operative across a Soviet-occupied country without getting everyone shot?

“Shadowfox and Eszter can’t walk all night,” Sparrow said. “If we break at sunset, we need to be off the roads before dawn. We’ll need to hide somewhere.”

“There’s an abandoned mill,” Egret said, sitting up. “I saw it on the map back in Paris. It’s about eight kilometers southwest of the river, might still have a roof.”

I nodded. “We make it there first. Rest. Then deal with the crossing.”

Will leaned forward. “I’ll find us a shallow point, something the Soviets don’t think is worth watching.”

We were so deep in it—ticking steps off like a list, organizing our escape like a rehearsal dinner with explosives.

Then Egret stilled.

He wasn’t shifting or sighing. He just stilled, as though some fictitious monster had just stepped into the doorway, and he didn’t have words to describe the horror.

“What?” I asked.

He blinked once.

Then looked at me with that rare expression—the one that meant he was actually afraid. Coming from him, that look alone sent a chill across my body that chased the heat away.

I leaned forward, immediately regretting the motion. “What is it?”

“We forgot something,” he said. “Something kind of important.”

Sparrow tilted her head. “What?”

He leaned in. “The machine. His work. That’s why we were sent in the first place, right? We weren’t just supposed to extract him; we were supposed to stop our uncle from getting the magic box. I believe the phrase our people used was, ‘At any cost.’”

The cry of wind slipping through the crack beneath the door and the light breathing of the closest pilgrims were the only sounds for more heartbeats than I could count. The four of us stared at one another, eyes wide, hearts racing.

How the hell could we have failed to destroy the damned machine? It was the entire point of our mission. It was what could change the world as we knew it, put America—and every free nation—under Stalin’s boot.

I saw it ripple across their faces—the realization that in the weeks of planning and panic and pain, in the escape and the trek and the dressing of wounds, we’d left something behind, something vital.

In all our efforts at saving two lives, we’d left everything behind.

Sparrow exhaled through her nose. “Oh, God. I might be sick.”

Will rubbed his temples.

I sat back, my chest suddenly hollow.

Farkas had said he couldn’t carry the prototype, that it was too large and too fragile. We’d accepted that, because we had Eszter, because he was terrified, because I was bleeding.

But it wasn’t acceptable, not by a long shot.

“We have to go back,” Egret said.

“No,” Will snapped. “We’re barely holding together as it is.”

“I’m not saying we all go, but someone has to. Or . . . we could leave something behind. I don’t know, a trap, a fire. A goddamned pipe bomb—”

“Enough,” I said, more breath than voice.

They fell silent again.

I closed my eyes and saw the thing—whatever it was—still humming in that warehouse, still ticking toward the Soviets’ hands. The future Farkas feared, where every whisper could be cracked, every rebellion crushed before it could spark.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Will turned to me so fast I felt the air shift. “The hell you will.”

“I’m already half dead. If anyone’s expendable—”

“You’re not expendable,” he said, fierce and too loud.

We both froze.

A couple sleeping across the aisle stirred.

“I’m going,” Will said, quieter now. “If anyone goes back, it’s me. You’re getting him out. Sparrow, too. Egret and I’ll handle the rest.”

Sparrow put her hand on his arm. “Not alone, and not yet. Let’s get them to the river first. Then we can decide.”

Outside, an owl called once.

The wind scraped against the old church walls.

Inside, four spies stared at each other in the dark, finally remembering what they were.