Page 148 of Shadowfox

Will cocked his head. “Why is that funny?”

She grinned. “He tricked them.”

“Who?”

“The Russians.”

Will shifted, spinning on his butt until he sat squared and eye-level with the girl.

“How did he trick them? I don’t understand.”

She huffed, as though all adults were idiots.

“He finished it. His fancy Enigma. He’s been done for months, but they don’t know that. Nobody does.”

“Dear God,” I whispered.

Sparrow and Egret stepped toward us.

Farkas rose from his spot. “Eszter—”

Will held up a palm, silencing the older man.

“Eszter, this is very important. Can you tell me that again? You said your father completed his machine. Does that mean it works? The machine the Russians have back in Budapest is functional? Do you understand what ‘functional’ means?”

She snorted again. “Of course I know that word. I’m a teenager, not an imbecile.”

She knew the word imbecile, too. Great.

“No, it isn’tfunctional.” She sounded out the last word as though it might bite her or try to fly away if she spoke it too quickly.

I leaned forward, ignoring the stabbing pain in my shoulder. “Eszter, I’m a little lost. Maybe it’s the drugs or my shoulder, but I don’t understand. Can you explain it to me? Use small words, okay?”

She grinned, appreciating my supplication to her superior intellect.

“He kept its heart. He always did. Or maybe it should be called its brain instead. I’m not sure.” Her brow furrowed as she considered. “Either way, he has the part that makes it all work. The rest is just a bunch of bolts and . . . gears? They’re called gears, aren’t they, Papa?”

When she glanced back, Farkas was on his feet and standing only a stride behind her. He kneeled down and smoothed her hair. “Yes, my beautiful, brilliant girl, they are gears.”

A gust of wind rattled a few loose boards of the barn.

A flock of birds flew close overhead, their screeches stabbing through the roof.

Will’s breathing grew quick and short, as though he’d just run for miles.

“Dr. Farkas,” I said, in a slow and measured tone. “Perhaps it’s time you told us more of your invention and its brain . . . or heart . . . whichever you prefer.”

56

Will

Farkaslookeddownathis daughter, smoothing the curls from her forehead. For a moment, I thought he might brush past the question, retreat into the silence that had defined so much of his presence with us, but he didn’t. Eszter had opened a door he had to walk through.

He lingered there, kneeling, and then slowly—very slowly—stood and turned to face us all. He looked at me, then Sparrow, then Egret, and finally Thomas, whose eyes—though dim with pain—held a sharpness beneath the haze.

“Go on, Papa. Tell them,” Eszter encouraged.

Farkas’s smile was tight as he placed his hand on the back of her head, likely more to steel himself than to comfort her.

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