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Until he was taken outside, and red and silver sparks lit up a smoke-filled sky.

Arthur, the youngest of his six creators, hurried him along the streets where sirens wailed. People needed to get inside buildings, but the buildings were falling.

“We have passage booked for ten children,” Arthur whispered. Arthur spoke to him like a man, not a monster, his voice urgent. “You will make sure they arrive in America, where their bombs haven’t reached—yet. That’s the first batch. You’ll come back and get more. I’ll go with you when I can.”

“I understand.”

“Do you understand we have to live until the boat sets sail next week?” Arthur gasped as scarlet sparks burst directly above them.

A building teetered. People screamed. Walls began to fall, and Reginald’s eyes glowed. Something inside woke up.

Protect the innocent. My people.

The strength of a hundred men was in his clay form, and it was easy to catch the wall that zoomed toward Arthur. It wasonly slightly more difficult to take a hunk of the rubble and hurl it far and high into the night sky. In seconds, they heard the buzzing wail of a plane going down.

Arthur uncurled from where he had fallen and crouched. His eyes were dazed, then happy. “You took out one of the Jerries, my friend!”

“They were harming the innocent.”

“You saved me.”

“You are innocent. You are one of my people.”

Arthur reached out and wrapped his small, warm human hands around Reginald’s massive gray one. “And you are one of my people. Come. There are many more to meet, all more helpless than I am.”

“Where?”

“The Solomon Children’s Home. Rabbi Solomon helps orphans find parents. He’s sent as many as he can to homes in Worthing and Hertford since the start of the Blitz.” Arthur guided him along, looking back over his shoulder. “We’ll have to walk. No trains running this late.”

Reginald kept up easily. “I take the boat to Hertford?”

“No. You take the ones he’s getting now to America.” Arthur’s hushed voice dropped even further. “They’re from Poland and France. The war has already reached them. We’re their last hope. Reginald! Doodlebug!”

Reginald turned his head toward the incredibly loud buzzing thing that came from above.

Arthur was screaming, running into the dark with his hands over his head.

Reginald expanded his chest and moved into the path of the buzzing monster—the real monster.

Pain exploded inside of him, eating through his middle and burning his arms. It felt like his head was flying free from his body for a minute—and then it all stopped.

Arthur was next to him, mouth open.

How had he ended up on his back?

Reginald looked down as he slowly sat up. The hole in his chest was blackened and charred—but already closing. “I need a new shirt.”

“Some of the girls at the orphanage sew.” Arthur pulled him to his feet with a huge, straining grunt. “Come on, friend.”

“Yes. Friend.”

He liked the word.

May 10th, 1941

Southampton

Yvette LaFontaine stood for a long time on the docks before she approached the gangplank leading to the SSAbundance. As a member of the French Resistance, she knew that the papers she had sewn in the lining of her skirt had to get to an American agent on board. Her father and brother had already given their lives for the cause. So had her husband.