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Ackermann must have turned back to the closet. Clothes moved on their hangers—but they couldn’t move far. They’d packed them in here for that very purpose—Yvonne’s still taking up their usual places, but George’s and Josef’s packed in too, to fill it out. No empty space.

It wouldn’t stop him from pulling it all out. He knew it wouldn’t.

But another voice came from the door. “Excuse me, sir. The radio in your car was calling for you. You’re needed at headquarters immediately.” Kraus. Had there really been a message coming in or...or was he trying to help? Had he heard the crashes?

He wouldn’t be trying to help him . But he could be trying to spare Corinne. Perhaps.

Ackermann bit out a low, German curse. “For what?”

“Weren’t willing to say when they heard it was me on the line and not you. I apologize if I overstepped by answering, but I was afraid it was something important.”

For a moment, it felt as though the entire flat held its breath. Felix’s sobs had quieted, Corinne’s hushing noises had stilled. Georges said not a word, nor did the two Nazis.

Then the boards creaked under Ackermann’s feet. He kicked blocks into the wall—out of his way. He stomped out of the room, snarled, “You haven’t seen the last of me,” ordered Kraus out ahead of him, and slammed the front door behind them on the way out.

Christian sagged into his corner, suddenly aware of how hot and close his breath tasted in his mouth. Of the mere inches that had separated them. Of the clear provision of God.

And of the fact that God could well have said no . Today, he’d extended his mercy. His grace.

But as too many in Germany had already learned, sometimes he didn’t intervene.

Sometimes he let the monsters come. Sometimes good people, good Christians, good Jews were dragged off in the night, no matter the prayers they cried.

He’d promised to be with his people through persecutions—not to prevent them.

“Vati?” Felix’s voice came in a whisper so soft even Christian barely heard it from inches away.

Certainty burned, from his nose all the way to his gut.

Ackermann would not give up. He knew Christian was alive, and he would hunt him until he found him.

He would likely kill him, if he didn’t decide a camp would be a longer, slower death.

But that wasn’t what made his limbs so heavy as Georges whispered the all clear and Christian pushed his way through long woolen coats and into his son’s arms.

Ackermann would punish Corinne. Felix. Georges. They would all pay.

The flat was a shambles of broken furniture and books, scattered like paper teardrops all over the living room.

Another bonfire of books ready for a match, that’s what it looked like.

Mountains of beautiful tomes, condemned.

Not all, this time, because of the author or the words.

But because of the woman who owned them.

No. Because of him . Because she’d let him in. Because she’d offered a way for him to see his son. Because he’d enraged that brute and hadn’t had the good sense to back down.

After a long moment just standing there, Felix in his arms, beholding the damage, he finally lifted his gaze and met hers.

She must have read him in an instant. Her eyes went wide. Her nostrils flared. “No. Don’t even consider it.”

“He’ll be back. You know he will. He isn’t going to let this go. He’ll turn the city inside out looking for me, a dog with a bone.”

“We’ll move you.” Georges’s face was firm, unmoved. His eyes were calculating. “We only need to buy a bit of time. I just got word that he’ll go before a tribunal sometime before the newyear—that’s probably what has him in a rage. If he’s punished—”

“If.” Christian shook his head, moving to wrap an arm around Corinne.

“He has the backing of the soldiers who were there—isn’t that what Gustaf said?

There will be no witness to testify against him for anything.

At worst, he’ll get a slap on the wrist. You know it’s true.

Gustaf might convince his relatives to put something on his record about overstepping his bounds with the Ministry of Education, but that won’t be enough to banish him from Paris. ”

Corinne lifted a hand to his chest and curled her fingers in his shirt. Felix’s little ones covered hers. Knitting them, knotting them.

His nose burned. “I have to. It’s the only way. I will present myself at the tribunal. Tell them what happened and pray they listen.”

She shook her head wildly. “If you turn yourself in, they’ll court-martial you too—you know that! You’ll be tried for desertion if not the treason Ackermann will try to convince them of. You disobeyed his orders, you—they’ll kill you.”

“They won’t. The army considers its officers to be its most valuable commodities.

They’ll...” What would they do? There had been examples already, of officers refusing to carry out immoral commands.

Some were busted down in rank, sent to the front, others reassigned, when it was their “dangerous” influence over their current troops they were denounced for.

“They’ll reassign me. Maybe...maybe send me to the front. ”

Tears actually filled her eyes—a sight he never thought to see. “You’re a pacifist. You don’t even know how to hold a weapon. How will you fight? No—let Oncle Georges get you away. To England or—”

“And leave that monster free to terrorize you all?” He shook his head. “I never want to take arms, that’s true enough. But I will protect my family in the only way I can. I will not let him hurt you, Corinne. Or you, Felix.”

His son’s arm snaked around his neck and squeezed. “Vati...you can’t leave. Not again.”

He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to give up this oasis of contentment he’d found, against the odds. This family they’d somehow built out of books and ideas and faith...and love.

But that last was what sealed it all. He couldn’t love them and not do the one thing that could save them.

“We could all leave.” Her voice, still quiet, sounded frantic. “Go to England.”

Georges was the one to sigh. “ Mon chouchou ...England is no safer. Hitler will invade it any day now. Nowhere is safer than Paris. You might escape Ackermann, but I...I fear there’s no outrunning the Nazi army.

And if he’s caught somewhere else—there won’t be a trial then. There will be bullets for you all.”

Christian met the older man’s gaze and saw within it exactly what he hoped for—an apology, and agreement.

Corinne and Felix first. Their safety above his. That was all that mattered. “Will you be able to learn when this tribunal is?”

Georges gave a single nod.

Christian mirrored it. “I’ll do it then. It’s the best hope of protecting you and of me getting out of this alive. And that’s what matters, isn’t it?” He pressed a kiss to Felix’s head. “We may be apart for a while, but it won’t last forever. Tante Corinne will take care of you.”

She blinked away the tears. Drew in a breath. And, being Corinne, lifted her chin. “Of course I will—but not as Tante Corinne. If you’re going to do this fool thing, Christian Bauer, then you’re going to marry me first. He’s going to be my son. I’m going to be his maman . Do you understand me?”

Somehow, Felix vanished from his arms. Somehow, the door to their bedroom closed, and it was only Christian and Corinne in the wreckage of books and shelves. Only Corinne in his arms. Only Corinne before his eyes.

He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve her love, to deserve even a minute to claim her as his own.

But he wasn’t fool enough to turn down the sweetest gift in the world. “I’ve never understood anything so perfectly in my life. And I’ve never agreed with anything more.”