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Papa had been willing to grant Maman both. More, he’d helped her reach for them. Surely there were other men like him in the world. “Michel didn’t actually say you couldn’t write novels while you raise a family, did he?”

Her friend huffed. “He said I wouldn’t have time to.

That the desire to pen my thoughts would fade when I had a little one to tell stories to instead.

And then ?” She leaned close, eyes blazing, voice low.

“Then he tried to tell me that poetry wasn’t for females either.

That we ought to leave it all to the men. ”

Corinne’s lips parted in surprise. When General de Gaulle had called for every French citizen to hold fast, to keep fighting, to never surrender, he had called them all out—not just the men.

She herself hadn’t gone to any of the meetings—it would have felt too strange, being there with her students—but Liana had told her in whispers of the three they’d held.

“You’re not the only woman there, are you? ”

A puff of breath. “No. But there are only five of us, out of twenty. Still, we can help . We can spread pamphlets like anyone else.”

“Yes.” But the word came out slowly as her gaze fell on the German auto parked in front of the library.

Not so long ago, very different German men had been in that building.

Using words, tracts, pamphlets, books to try to fight a war.

..but there had been other voices too, voices that grew louder and more frequent as the years dragged by and words achieved little appreciable change.

Voices that called for violence. Those voices were more likely to be heard now, when violence had already met them.

She pulled Liana to a halt well away from listening German ears.

“But what if they begin passing out bombs instead? Weapons? Will you still want to take part?”

The pretty bold slashes of Liana’s brows drew into a V . V for victory. V for verboten . “It won’t come to that.”

“Won’t it?” The gray-shirts patrolling Paris’s streets certainly weren’t enforcing Nazi rule with only posters and propaganda. They had pistols. Rifles. Bayonets. How long would it really take for fiery young men like Michel to decide they’d have to meet like with like?

Instead of it giving her pause, the question seemed to steel whatever resolve Liana had formed. She lifted her chin, cocked her head, and looked toward the library.

No—toward the two Nazis stepping out its door.

“Perhaps you’re right, Corinne. Perhaps that’s not my way—but there are other ways to help. Get information, perhaps?” When the men noticed them, Liana sent them a too-warm, too-inviting smile and added a flirtatious little wave.

Corinne gripped her elbow and pulled her arm back down. “Are you mad?” she hissed. “You know what the Parisiennes who fraternize with Nazis are being called! Your father will—”

“You know what?” Liana pulled her arm free and sent her a smirk. “You think too much.”

Now that was a familiar accusation. And much as she’d like to huff over hearing it again from a girl ten years her junior, she couldn’t spare the time.

Liana was already sashaying toward Kraus and Bauer, putting all the sway into her hips that Corinne had taken from her own when the officers in the restaurant had been watching.

She had little choice but to scurry after her. “Liana!”

Kraus smiled, though it was guarded as he looked between Corinne and the pretty brunette—no doubt because he assumed any friend of Corinne’s was an enemy of his.

He wasn’t wrong.

“Bonjour,” he said, the word awkward from his lips.

Bauer was frowning. He’d met Liana last week, when he’d dropped by for another surprise book inspection.

Liana had been there to spend the night with Corinne.

She’d expected him to leave again within minutes when he realized she had company, but instead, he’d asked Liana polite questions.

..which had turned into more intentional questions when he learned she was a university student, studying literature.

By the end of his hour-long visit, he still hadn’t found the book she’d planted for him to discover in Maman’s closet, but he’d encouraged Liana to chase her literary dreams and even recommended a few French publishers who favored work like what she described wanting to write someday.

Why did he have to be so... nice ?

“If he weren’t so old,” Liana had whispered when he’d left, “I’d declare myself in love.”

As if his age were the real problem—and besides, he wasn’t that old. Perhaps, what, three or four years older than Corinne? That was young , thank you very much.

Bauer shifted his questioning gaze to Corinne, and she had no trouble decoding it. Liana, he already knew, was no senseless flirt, nor was she in a situation desperate enough to warrant giving in to the advances of a Nazi, like other Parisiennes. So what game was she playing?

Corinne shrugged and shifted closer to his side while Liana draped an arm over Kraus’s shoulder and asked him if they were about to go to lunch.

“She is...upset with her beau.” It was the only semi-reasonable explanation she could devise on such short notice.

“He was trying to tell her that her dreams of writing would fade away once she was married and had children.”

Professor Bauer sighed. “I would offer to have a talk with the young man, but I suspect he would do the opposite of anything I said. Perhaps if I show up dressed like a Parisian?”

She shouldn’t joke with him. Shouldn’t laugh. But a smile twisted her lips anyway. “I am trying to imagine you in a beret...”

“I look ridiculous.” His lips twitched too. “I tried. But I cut a dashing figure in a fedora, I’m told.”

The style would certainly suit him better than the Nazi cap—but she wasn’t about to say so.

Especially since Liana was inviting Kraus and Bauer both up to Corinne’s flat for lunch, and Kraus was, for some reason, agreeing.

Corinne cursed herself for getting distracted.

“Oh, Liana, I don’t think...we don’t really have enough to offer them, certainly not the fare they’re used to. ”

Kraus didn’t take his eyes off Liana. “We have our own food. We can bring it. Isn’t that right, Professor?”

Bauer looked to be tamping down another smile. “Of course.”

Corinne was going to have a few choice words for her friend when they were alone again.

Liana hadn’t seemed to consider that the flat might not be prepared for another surprise inspection by the Nazis.

The professor only ever came in the evenings, giving her ample time after class to put away anything she didn’t want him to see.

Or, given that he’d sifted through nearly the entire flat at this point, at least put away so it wasn’t obvious she’d been using it.

The last issue of Marianne magazine still sat on her end table, but Corinne’s quick perusal of the space as they entered didn’t show anything else incriminating, at least. She always changed the dial back to Radio Paris before she switched it off, and she never left out anything from Oncle Georges.

And while she didn’t dare assume that the professor wouldn’t recognize Marianne as one of the periodicals that had been dismantled when it refused to accept Nazi oversight, Kraus probably wouldn’t.

And she was beginning to think that the soldat was more the menace than the professor.

Bauer had pulled several banned books from her shelf and, rather than confiscate them or even stamp them with that horrid red V , he’d simply talked about the stories with her as if they were two patrons in any fiction section.

He’d even recommended other works by the same authors.

She couldn’t discount the possibility that he was trying to set a trap for her. Lure her into purchasing verboten books. Tracking her movements and then arresting the bookseller, her, everyone.

But Abraham’s words from that morning kept rattling around in her head as she accepted the bread, meat, and cheese—Bread! Meat! Cheese!—from the men and added them to her own provisions.

The professor had been perfectly polite, he’d said. He’d let him go at the first possible moment, he’d said. He’d even made book recommendations, provided him with a list, he’d said.

He’d pulled out the list to prove it. She’d only scanned it, to be sure, but now.

..it was an odd list. A strange mix of German, French, and English titles.

Some of which were obscure, some of which weren’t really even good —and having heard, at this point, Bauer’s opinion on dozens of books, she didn’t think he’d disagree with her about those.

So...why? Why those books? None of them were banned, it was true, but...

And why had he taken the time to make up a list to give him anyway?

“Need some help?” He slid into the kitchen with so much ease that her back went straight.

Two weeks ago, they’d searched this room, and he’d found another book that she’d hidden behind an old, dented pan they never used anymore.

It had been strange, seeing him poking through the cabinets, laughing when he pulled out the book.

It was strange now to watch him move to her cupboards with complete comfort and pull down plates, freshly washed serviettes, and silverware enough for the four of them.

“Oh, I just met her when classes started back up,” Liana was saying from the living room, the tone of her voice putting Corinne on edge. It was...sultry. Inviting. And she apparently had already realized that if she meant to win Kraus’s trust, she had to pit herself against Corinne somehow.

The professor set the service onto the table, and she jumped.

He frowned. “Are you all right, mademoiselle ?”