Chapter 2 Thomas
Thomas
Iwoke before dawn to the weight of Will’s arm across my chest and the sound of his slow and steady breathing. For a long moment, I simply lay there, unwilling to move, unwilling to break the spell of the quiet hour.
The flat was cold. Our radiators had given up their battle against the January frost sometime in the night, but beneath the blankets, pressed against Will’s warmth, I felt none of it.
His body curved around mine like a question mark, his forehead resting against my shoulder, one hand splayed across my ribs as if even in sleep he needed to reassure himself I was still there.
I understood the impulse. I had it, too.
We had almost lost each other so many times.
Paris, the Netherlands, Berlin, Vienna, that terrible night in Rome when I’d thought the bullet had found his heart instead of his shoulder.
Each mission carved new scars, visible and invisible, and each time we returned to our bed, to this small fortress of warmth and silence, I felt the fragile miracle of it.
Will stirred against me, making a soft sound of protest as I shifted.
“Go back to sleep,” I murmured.
“Can’t.” His voice was rough with drowsiness, his lips brushing my shoulder as he spoke. “You’re thinking too loudly.”
“I’m not thinking. I’m admiring.”
“Admiring what?”
“You.” I turned in his arms, facing him in the gray pre-dawn light. His hair was mussed, and there were pillow creases on his cheek. He looked rumpled and half awake and utterly beautiful. I felt my chest tighten with the familiar ache of loving him too much for words to hold.
“Now you’re staring,” he said.
“I told you, I’m admiring.”
“Same thing.”
“Not even close.” I traced the line of his jaw with my fingertips, feeling the rasp of stubble and the warmth of his skin. “Staring is passive. Admiring is active. It involves intention.”
“It’s five in the morning. I’m not equipped for semantics.”
“Then don’t talk.”
I kissed him, slow and gentle, the kind of kiss that was more greeting than demand. He responded in kind, his hand sliding up my back, pulling me closer.
We had time.
The Baroness was asleep on our sofa, the city was still dark beyond our windows, and for this brief stolen hour, the world could not touch us.
I had learned, in the years since we’d found each other, to treasure these moments. They weren’t grand gestures or dramatic declarations—Will wasn’t built for those, and neither was I, really—but small intimacies.
The way he murmured my name like a prayer.
The way his hands knew every inch of my body, every scar and sensitive place, mapping me with a thoroughness that still undid me after all this time.
The way he looked at me afterward, gray-blue eyes soft and unguarded, as if I were something precious.
We made love slowly, mindful of our guest in the next room.
There was no urgency to it—just the familiar rhythm of bodies that knew each other completely, the give and take, the building heat.
When I finally came apart in his arms, I buried my face against his neck to muffle the sound.
I felt him shudder against me moments later, his fingers digging into my hips hard enough to bruise.
We lay tangled together in the aftermath, catching our breath, my head on his chest and his hand stroking lazy patterns across my back.
“I love you,” I said.
Will was quiet for a moment, then his hand stilled on my back, and I felt him press a kiss to the top of my head.
“I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”
It wasn’t eloquent. Will never really was, not about things that mattered, but I heard what he meant beneath the simple words:
I’m here. I’m yours. Whatever comes, we face it together.
I closed my eyes and let myself drift, just for a little while longer, in the warmth of his arms and the temporary peace of the morning.
The Baroness was already awake when we emerged from the bedroom.
She sat at our kitchen table wearing Will’s threadbare robe.
Its navy blue fabric, fraying at the cuffs, looked somehow elegant on her, despite its shabbiness.
A cup of tea steamed before her. Our spice cabinet stood open, its contents rearranged into what I assumed was some arcane system of Swiss organization.
“Good morning, my darlings,” she said without looking up from a document she was reading.
“I made tea. Your kettle is a relic from the past and should be replaced immediately, but I managed. There is also toast, though your bread is stale. William, you will go to the bakery for fresh croissants, yes? Thomas, you will sit down and stop hovering in the doorway like a nervous undergraduate.”
“Good morning to you, too, Baroness,” I said, sliding into the chair across from her. “Sleep well?”
“I slept adequately. Your sofa has a spring that requires attention, and now so does my back, but I have endured worse.” She looked up. Whatever rest she’d managed, it hadn’t been enough. “I trust you both slept soundly?”
There was the faintest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth.
I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “The walls in this flat are not that thin.”
“The walls in this flat are paper, Thomas. I heard everything.” She took a delicate sip of her tea. “It was rather sweet, actually. I had almost forgotten what genuine affection sounds like.”
Will had gone still, his expression carefully neutral. I reached out and squeezed his hand.
“Well,” I said brightly, “at least we provided entertainment.”
“You provided reassurance.” The Baroness set down her cup, and her tone shifted—the teasing warmth fading into something more serious.
“In our line of work, one sees a great deal of ugliness. Betrayal, manipulation, the casual cruelties that powerful people inflict upon those beneath them. It is easy to forget that love exists. Watching the two of you reminds me that not everything in this world is shadow and deception. It gives me hope, which I find I need rather desperately at the moment.”
The weight of her words settled over the kitchen.
Will moved to the stove, beginning the ritual of making coffee. I observed the Baroness watching him, saw the way her eyes tracked his movements with something like maternal concern.
“You said you would tell us everything this morning,” I said. “We’re listening.”
The Baroness nodded slowly.
She lifted the document she’d been reading. I could see now it was covered in handwritten notes, including names, dates, and connecting lines. She laid it on the table between us.
“Two weeks ago,” she began, “a monk was murdered at the monastery of St. Gallen.”
I exchanged a glance with Will. St. Gallen was one of Switzerland’s oldest religious sites, home to a medieval library that scholars had studied for centuries. Murder in such a place would make headlines but hardly seemed cause for a nation’s spymaster to flee to Paris.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said carefully, “but what does a dead monk have to do with—”
“He was not merely a monk.” The Baroness’s voice was sharp. “He was one of my sources, my most valuable source, in fact. He had been feeding me intelligence for twenty years.”
“Twenty years?” Will turned from the stove, coffee forgotten for the moment. “Who was he?”
“His name was Aldric. Before he took holy orders, it was something else entirely.” The Baroness paused, her fingers tracing the edge of the document. “He was a member of the Order of Saint Longinus.”
I felt my stomach clench.
“He renounced them,” the Baroness continued.
“Twenty years ago, he came to me in desperation. He had seen and done things that he could no longer reconcile with his conscience. He wanted out. The Order has never permitted members to simply leave. They consider it apostasy, punishable by death. So I arranged his escape. We arranged a new identity, a new life, and sanctuary in the monastery at St. Gallen, where he spent the rest of his years doing penance for his sins.”
“And feeding you information,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “He maintained a few contacts within the Order, other members who had grown disillusioned, others who simply liked to gossip. He reported to me on the Order’s movements, their recruitment, and their operations.
It was through Aldric that I first learned of Cardinal Severan’s rise to power within the brotherhood.
” Her jaw tightened. “And it was through Aldric that I learned, three weeks ago, that something new was stirring.”
Will brought coffee to the table and sat down beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched.
“What kind of stirring?” he asked.
“The Order’s remnants are being contacted.
They have stepped up their recruitment and organization.
” The Baroness tapped the document. “Aldric sent me reports of meetings in Munich and Vienna, even in Bern itself. Old members are being approached, new members initiated. Someone is rebuilding the network, but Aldric could not determine who, or why.”
“Severan,” I said. “It has to be. We never found his body after Rome.”
“That was my assumption as well, but Aldric was uncertain. He said the secrecy, the rituals, and the codes were all similar, but something was different. The rhetoric had changed. They spoke less about divine judgment and more about restoration.”
“Restoration of what?” I asked.
“Political restoration. A new order for a new age.”
“You suspect Soviet involvement,” Will said quietly, a statement rather than a question.
“Perhaps.” The Baroness spread her hands.
“The Order has always attracted zealots, men who believe they are instruments of a higher power. Such men are useful to intelligence services. They can be manipulated, directed, and aimed like weapons at targets they believe are enemies of God. If Moscow has taken control of the Order’s remnants and turned them into assets . . .”
Her voice trailed off as her eyes found the window again.
“Aldric was killed because he knew too much,” I said. “Because he was reporting to you.”