The word that had bidden her to pray for him. The word that had echoed in her mind on that day so fateful to them both. The number that meant him in her mind.

He smiled and took a step backward. “I love you too.”

And she smiled.

None of the words Das Gespenst knew in any of his five languages was strong enough. He’d managed to grab only his lightweight blue jacket for his shimmy out the window, and it wasn’t nearly enough against the chill. He’d been hunkered down in this alley all blasted night, careful to shrink his frame with a hunch in his back. A cough threatened to attack his lungs after the hours spent in the cold damp.

Blast it all. Who was that girl? She was from a genteel family—she shouldn’t have known such moves.

It had been so simple a plan. Give Dorothea Elton a slash across the shoulder to prove himself serious, then grab her and hold the knife to her throat. Demand Margot De Wilde fetch him the codebook the High Command wanted. And then, while she was fetching that—only then, once his assignment was being completed—a sweet taste of revenge.

Elton.

It had seemed so beautifully simple. So perfect, that they were all connected—the universe handing him not only the summation to one of the tasks he’d been sent here to achieve, but revenge as well. A bit of recompense for all this war had taken from him.

He leaned his head back against the brick wall behind him and kept his eyes trained on Dorothea Elton as she made her way inside the Old Building, accompanied by an armed guard. In, no doubt, to be with her friend. Connected. Together. But they couldn’t stay in there forever. They’d emerge, those young women, either together or separately.

He wasn’t out of moves yet. He would get the High Command their blasted codes. He would deliver them a fine target for their bombs.

And he would have his revenge.

29

Margot blinked awake slowly, not quite sure where she was or why there was such a babble around her. Something soft was under her back, something warm tucked around her. But it took an entire six and a half seconds to realize that she was in DID’s office, on the leather sofa he kept against the wall. And the corridors were alive with the thrum of many voices going about their daily tasks.

She sat up, eyes searching for a clock. The last she’d known, Drake and Camden were in a Sopwith, flying across the Channel with the first hint of dawn. And so she’d come in here, sat down, thought to breathe for a minute. She’d tried to pray.