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“Rinny.” He abandoned the kitchen and moved to wrap his arms around her, press her head to his stomach. “You know I’d do anything for you. Move heaven and earth, if I had to. You’re...you’re the closest thing I’ll ever have to a daughter. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded against the soft wool of his jacket, wrapped her arms around his waist. Held on, like she was Felix’s age again, like when he’d first covered for her when he caught her in mischief that would have made Maman see red.

What had it even been? She couldn’t remember, not the trouble she’d found—only the friend.

The sure knowledge that Oncle Georges would always have her back, and a wink, and a bonbon for her in his pocket. “I love you, Oncle.”

He leaned down, pressed a kiss to the top of her head. And then reached over to tousle Felix’s hair too. “And I love you. We’ll get through this, mon chouchou . Whatever it takes.”

The anger probably still simmered, somewhere inside him—because it would have hurt him, knowing she’d kept such a secret. She shouldn’t have. She could see that now. “I’m sorry. That I didn’t tell you. I just...it wasn’t quite real.”

He chucked her playfully under the chin and stepped away. “Matters of the heart have rules of their own. I understand that, Rinny. I was only upset because I’d have had other precautions in place, had I known. To keep you safe. All of you.”

She didn’t ask what they were, not given the way his face shifted.

“His aide—Kraus, isn’t it? He’s at the library. Just sitting outside the door like a lost puppy. You should go down. Let him tell you what happened. See what story he gives you.” He motioned toward the living room windows. If she peeked out, she could see the library entrance.

She didn’t bother. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was leave her flat, go so far from Christian.

..but they needed to know all they could.

And Kraus was more likely to talk to her than her stranger of an uncle.

She nodded and reached for the cardigan draped over the back of the third chair.

Oncle Georges cleared his throat. “Perhaps first you ought to change out of...that.” He nodded toward her dress.

Yesterday’s dress. Still stiff with dried blood at the hem, where she’d knelt beside him. She’d washed it from her hands but hadn’t taken the time to change her clothes.

Part of her wanted to be embarrassed at the doctor and Father Serres seeing her in such a state. The greater part didn’t care. But it certainly wouldn’t do to go outside like this. To let Kraus know she’d been there.

A quick change, a brushing of her hair, a touch of rouge on her cheeks to distract from her paleness, red on her lips to steal the attention from the hollows beneath her eyes. She didn’t look good by any stretch, but “almost normal” was all she was hoping for.

A few minutes later, the biting air inspired her to hug her light jacket closer and wish she’d grabbed her wool peacoat. But she continued down the front steps, along the wrought iron gate that surrounded the library, and paused when she spotted Kraus.

Just as her uncle had said—sitting there on the stoop, back against the door, staring into space.

“Kraus? Are you all right?” She let herself through the gate, praying her voice sounded normal as she spoke to him in German, knowing the conversation would be too complicated for his limited French.

He blinked, gaze meandering her way. “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?” She slid a few steps along the pavement and then halted, still several feet away.

He motioned toward the building at his back, larynx bobbing. “He’s dead—the professor. Shot.”

“What?” It was easy, so easy to let horror into her voice. To let her hands fall, limp and useless, at her sides. “When? How? He was just sitting in my classroom yesterday morning—”

“Yesterday evening. It was—he...” His face crumpled, and he rested his elbows on his raised knees, covering his face with his hands. “It was my fault. It was all my fault.”

His fault? She froze, all but the blood pulsing in her ears. “What do you mean?”

“I told Ackermann what my cousin had said. I didn’t think—he wasn’t supposed to shoot him! Just make him take a stand, denounce the Jews. That’s all I thought he’d do. That the professor would stop talking about them like they were our equals , I didn’t think he’d defend one like that—die for him.”

Then he didn’t know Christian at all. But that wasn’t the point. “What cousin? What did he say?”

“He’s a student. At the University of Berlin.

” His voice went echoey, distorted by the tunnel he’d made of his arms. “I only wanted to know more about the professor. Be a better aide. I just asked him to tell me what he knew about him, what people said about him. How his classes were. I thought he’d send a few funny stories, and I could tease him, and he’d laugh and ask how I’d heard that.

I thought it would make me sound clever . ”

Her throat went dry. “And instead?”

He looked up, straight through her, eyes haunted.

“He said the professor had been a walking ghost last year, in the class he had him for. His son had just died. He’d lost his wife years before—things he never even told me.

But Tabb said before the kid’s death, he’d given a few inflammatory lectures.

Things he shouldn’t have said, things they had to report.

He was surprised to hear he was here , working for the Reich.

They all thought he’d finally been arrested, he’d said—arrested!

For speaking against Hitler. For defending the Jews. ”

Her fingers twisted in the too-thin lapel of her jacket. She said nothing.

He didn’t wait for her to. Just sagged again.

“Apparently his father had a bunch of Jewish friends. Men who used to be professors there too—men who came here , to Paris. That was why I gave the letter to Ackermann. He was supposed to ask him, to question him, to get him to declare his loyalty. He wasn’t supposed to kill him. ”

Acid burned her throat. Kraus—Kraus was the reason all this had happened.

Kraus was the traitor, the one who had turned on a man who’d been nothing but kind to him, who had gone behind his back to a beast like Ackermann.

“Idiot boy.” The words came out as acidic as the bile in her throat, and he winced as they landed on him.

“You handed a weapon to a bully and expected him to talk ?”

His face twisted.

She didn’t care if her words hurt him. No, she did—she wanted them to, because Christian was lying inches from death because of him .

“You expected him to subscribe to your hatred? To agree that his father’s friends were subhuman, just because you wanted to feel clever?

Superior? You think those men who wrote books and essays and poems and treatises are your inferior?

Why—because thousands of years ago, their forefathers came from a different country than yours did?

A land that gave us our Bible, our morals, our ethics, our very civilization?

You think they are inferior to you ? You’re nothing but an ignorant farm boy with delusions of power because you put on a uniform! ”

He lurched to standing, but she spun around so she didn’t have to look at the plea on his face. Stormed the two steps she’d taken from the gate.

Halted with her hand on the cold iron.

Because she blinked, and she saw Christian in her mind’s eye.

Christian, lying on her mother’s bed, the priest praying over him.

She felt the cross she’d traced over herself.

Lord, rule my thoughts. Lord, rule my heart.

Lord, rule my actions. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Saw Christian sitting in her classroom, this boy at his side. Saw him laughing in her living room, Felix in his arms.

Heard his words, the night he’d told her of his wife, their baby, his fight to give Felix the right to live. I thought I could make a difference there, with them. That if I could just help them see that these ideas are mad, convince them to keep their minds open...

Imagined him now, wincing at her words. Reaching not for her, but for Kraus. She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed the cross would give her the strength she needed to turn around.

Kraus still stood in front of the door, his face a wreck of regret and pain. Her nostrils flared. “Forgive me,” she said, hoarse now instead of shouting. “I shouldn’t have said those things. It is the shock, but that is no excuse.”

Kraus collapsed against the door. “No. You’re right. It’s my fault.”

“It isn’t. It’s the fault of the man who pulled the trigger.” She took a step. Another. A third. Made herself reach out and rest her hand on his shoulder. Made herself offer the forgiveness she always craved but was so slow to give. “Do you know what Professor Bauer saw when he looked at you?”

He winced, mouth twisting. “An ignorant farm boy with delusions of power?”

“No.” Her voice cracked on the simple syllable.

“He would never have said something so hurtful and cruel. So untrue. When he looked at you, Kraus, he saw a young mind ripe for learning. He saw a young man with all the potential in the world. One with his whole life spread out before him. He spoke of you like one of his favorite pupils—and he prayed for you. Every day. Prayed you would follow the path God had for you. A path of love rather than hatred.”

She knew it was true, even if Christian had never said as much. She knew it because she’d seen the way he looked at his aide—the same way she looked at her students. With the same hopes and fears and prayers.

His shoulders shook, though no tears escaped his eyes. “He would hate me now though. If he’d lived. I turned him in. It’s my fault.”

“He would forgive you. And he would tell you to think, next time, before you blindly chase your ideology. He would ask you to think , not just to feel. To ask, always, if you could be wrong. To listen, always listen , to the other points of view. Because the moment we stop granting someone the right to disagree, Kraus, this is what happens. Do you understand me? This is what turns men into tyrants. This is what leads to fear and death.”

A lecture he clearly hadn’t heard yesterday. A point that hadn’t sunk in. A lesson he’d ignored.

But yesterday, he was an angry young man with his cousin’s words burning in his pocket, wondering if his mentor had lied to him.

Today he was a different young man. A young man who saw the cost of choosing a policy over a person.

A young man with his whole life spread out before him, who would need to choose, every moment of every day, what path he would follow. What fight he’d make his own.

She squeezed his shoulder and then let go. Stepped away. Turned.

Christian would forgive him. She knew he would. But it was a path she’d have to choose to walk every moment of every day. And she’d be fighting her own fallen nature every step of the way.