The masked head tilted slightly, acknowledging the name.
“Baroness, I must apologize for the accommodations.” His voice was oddly soft, almost gentle. “You have proven resistant to our hospitality in a most impressive way.”
His head turned toward Thomas and me. I couldn’t see his eyes behind that featureless mask, but I felt them.
“And you must be the Baroness’s American friends. We have been watching you since Bern.” A pause. “You are persistent, I will grant you that. Persistent, and foolish.”
“Let her go,” Thomas said. His voice was steady, but there was rage beneath it. “Let her go, and maybe you walk out of here alive.”
The Shadow laughed.
“Brave words, but you are outnumbered, outgunned, and very far from home.”
He gestured with one gloved hand, and two of his men stepped forward. They were dragging something between them.
A body, limp and bloodied.
Otto.
His magnificent white mustache was stained red. His face was a ruin of bruises and broken bones. But his chest rose and fell barely. He was still breathing, still alive.
“He came for her alone,” the Shadow said. “We took him easily enough.” Another tilt of that obsidian mask. “He told us nothing, of course, but we already knew you would come. We have known since before you left Bern.”
My mind raced.
Otto hadn’t told them anything. Even if he had, he couldn’t have known we were coming, but someone had. Someone had told them exactly when, exactly how.
“Enough talk,” the Shadow said. “I was ordered to discourage you, to persuade you to abandon your investigation. You did not listen. Now I am ordered to eliminate you instead.”
He raised his hand.
The guards raised their weapons.
I felt Thomas tense beside me.
The Baroness’s broken hand gripped my arm.
I felt the cold certainty that we had come all this way to die in a stone cell, surrounded by enemies, with no hope of—
Bisch.
Where was Bisch?
I glanced toward the door. He had been right behind us. Now he was gone.
The Shadow’s hand began to fall.
And then the lights went out again.
16
Thomas
Darkness. Then gunfire.
I threw myself sideways, dragging Will down with me as bullets tore through the space where we’d been standing. Muzzle flashes strobed like lightning. Brief, blinding snapshots of chaos flashed around us.
A guard spinning.
