Page 61 of Shadowfox

Will blinked. Thomas didn’t. Sparrow held her breath.

“Jesus, Egret,” Will muttered, standing halfway.

“Sit down, Emu,” I said. “You’ll make a scene.”

He didn’t sit.

I slid into the fourth chair like I wasn’t dying inside, like the whole day hadn’t folded me in half.

“Well?” Sparrow’s voice was quiet. Lethal.

“I’m fine.”

The scowl that formed on her face said she didn’t believe me, not for a second.

I poured myself a glass of wine from the bottle still sitting on the table, took a sip, and let it burn all the way down.

“They kept me longer than expected,” I said. “My tail didn’t shake until an hour ago, and the man who lost me? He didn’t look happy about it.”

That bought a little silence.

I set my glass down and looked across the table at Sparrow. She hadn’t moved, but she watched everything I did.

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, trying to keep the weariness from my voice.

“But you did,” Will said.

Sparrow’s eyes fell to her lap.

That landed harder than anything else.

“Why don’t you tell us about your day,” Thomas said, as though asking about a child’s time at school. “The waiter can bring you dinner if you’re hungry.”

“God, I’m starved,” fell out before I had time to think. “They brought me into a conference room. There were two officers, one uniformed, one . . . not.”

Thomas’s brow tightened.

I continued, “They didn’t believe my credentials were real, but they couldn’t prove they weren’t, and they didn’t want to make a mistake.”

“So they tested you,” Will said.

“Hard questions, theory, history, terminology—everything a pro in the space should know. Then they pulled out diagrams I was certain I wasn’t supposed to have seen.”

“Did you recognize any of it?” Thomas asked.

“One piece. It looked like a preliminary concept of the Farkas machine—or something inspired by it. It was crude, but dangerous enough if they get the rest.”

The table went quiet again.

I leaned back in my chair, pressing a hand to my side like I could hold myself together.

“They kept me for hours, searched my bag twice, asked about every stamp in my passport. Then they had me sit in a room with no clock, just a humming light and a window with blinds that didn’t close.”

“Interrogation without the bruises,” Will said.

“Not all without,” I said, and let my shirt shift just enough for them to see the purple mass blooming across my ribs.

Sparrow’s fingers gripped her wineglass so tightly I thought it might break.

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