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The night it all ended had begun just like any other.

Mum had made dinner—a watery soup of rutabaga and carrots—and helped Liliane change into her blue nightgown, reminding her, as she always did, of the treasures sewn into the lining, just in case.

“Remember, my dear girls, you must only tell a grown-up you trust about the jewels, and even then, only in an emergency.”

“I know, Mum,” Liliane murmured as Mum leaned forward, breathing in the sweet, spun-sugar scent of her younger daughter’s curls. “It’s our secret.”

Colette lingered after Liliane had trotted out to the other room, neighing like a horse, in search of her father to beg him to play a game involving knights and princesses. “Mum?”

“Yes, my darling?”

Colette’s stomach swam with unease. “Things are getting more dangerous, aren’t they?”

Mum put her arm around Colette. “Oh, my darling, we’ll be all right.” She paused. “But if something should happen to me, you must promise me you will look out for your sister.”

Colette studied Mum’s face. Was there something she wasn’t saying? “Of course, Mum. I promise. I’ll always protect her.”

Mum blinked a few times, and Colette could see the tears in her eyes. “I know you will, my sweet girl.”

From the other room, they could hear Papa snapping at Liliane that he was busy and didn’t have time to play.

He acted as if the very existence of his children was an inconvenience these days, and Colette could see how upset he was that Mum had continued to steal.

He didn’t understand that what she was doing was more important now than ever.

Colette could hardly imagine his rage if he discovered that she, too, had been taking jewels from Germans and collaborators.

As Papa’s tone of annoyance drifted in from the parlor, Mum pressed her fingers to her temples and took a deep breath. “Liliane!” she called brightly. “Come here, darling! Colette and I will play with you!”

Liliane horse-trotted back into the room, and Colette jumped up and grabbed her little sister’s hand. “Come on,” she said, forcing a bright smile. “We get to be knights of the Round Table, and Mum is our horse.”

“ Neigh! ” Mum replied solemnly, and Colette laughed and pulled her little sister in for a hug.

Later that evening, Colette played quietly with Liliane in their shared bedroom, pretending that Liliane’s dolls were ballerinas, while Mum washed the dishes and Papa read the newspaper on the sofa.

As they made the rag dolls dip and dance, Colette’s mind wandered to Madame Rosman’s bracelets in the hems of their gowns.

Was that why Mum had been acting so unsettled?

Was it worry for her friend? Or concern about keeping such valuable pieces safe for the duration of the war?

The theft of the bracelets a week earlier, Colette knew, went against her mother’s usual moral code, for she hadn’t stolen them to fund justice; she had stolen them to avenge a friend.

Then again, perhaps the theft had been right in line with Mum’s ideals after all, for she’d clearly been trying to right a wrong.

But was that even possible with the Rosmans already in German custody?

They’d already lost so much, and the return of the bracelets would surely do little to soothe the horror they’d endured after they returned.

Colette understood the need to do something, anything , to restore some sense of justice.

It was just what she’d been doing for the last several weeks, stealing frequently, almost desperately, in an attempt to balance out the disappearance of Tristan.

She hadn’t even told her mother about most of the pieces yet.

Mum would scold her for being reckless, but if avenging something so terrible didn’t justify a response, what did?

As Liliane made her dolls pirouette and leap on the imaginary stage of the bed, Colette absently fingered the hem of her own nightgown, which was cleverly lined with an extra layer of cotton to prevent anyone from being able to feel the pieces hidden there.

Colette could just barely make out the weight of her half of the bracelet pair, and of Hélène Rosman’s emerald ring, which her mother had also placed there for safekeeping.

We will protect them for her until she returns , her mother had said, not meeting Colette’s eye, and Colette wondered if Mum even believed her own words about Madame Rosman coming back.

“Colette,” Liliane chirped, cutting into her thoughts, “you aren’t paying attention! It’s time for the grand finale!”

“Of course,” Colette said, forcing a smile as she picked up her doll. She had just returned her ballerina to the makeshift stage when, suddenly, there was a loud pounding on their front door.

“Open up!” called a deep, German-accented voice from the hall.

“Mum?” Colette cried out, leaping up. The Germans were here ! At her family’s door! Was it because of her? Had she been careless in her stealing? Had she put her family at risk?

“Go out the bedroom window now, Colette!” Mum shouted back, her voice high with panic as the man with a German accent shouted from the other side of the apartment door again. “Take Liliane! Run!”

Colette hesitated, paralyzed by indecision. If they fled now, who would look out for Mum? She couldn’t trust Papa to do so.

“Go, Colette! Now!” her mother cried again, and it was the impetus Colette needed to grab Liliane’s hand and head for the window.

She opened it quickly and stuck her head out to make sure there weren’t any soldiers waiting for them outside.

There was a German truck idling by the curb, but it was empty. The coast was clear.

“Come on, Liliane, hurry,” she said urgently, pulling her sister toward the window. They were on the ground floor, so there would be only a small drop to the sidewalk once she hoisted Liliane out.

She had just lifted her sister up when there was a loud, splintering sound from the outer room, and suddenly, heavy footsteps sounded in the apartment, along with several German-accented voices, all yelling commands to Mum and Papa at once.

There was the sound of a slap, and Mum screamed a bloodcurdling scream, and something in Colette snapped. She couldn’t abandon her mother.

“Wait here, Liliane,” she said quickly.

“Don’t go!” Liliane whimpered. “I’m scared.”

“I’ll be right back, I promise. I just have to help Mum.”

“All right,” Liliane agreed in a hushed voice, tears pooling in her eyes. “ Kyi-kyi-kyi ,” she whimpered under her breath, but Colette had no time to respond.

Colette ran from the bedroom and burst into the parlor, where four uniformed Germans seemed to take up all the space in the room.

One was holding her father; another had her mother’s hands twisted behind her back, and the remaining two were opening drawers and cupboards, pulling all the contents out and tossing them onto the floor.

“Let them go!” Colette cried before she could stop herself.

“No, Colette, no!” her mother cried, locking eyes with Colette, and Colette knew that her mother was telling her to turn around, to go back, to protect Liliane. But it was already too late; one of the Germans who’d been pulling out drawers had turned and was advancing on her menacingly now.

“And who do we have here?” he asked in thickly accented French, grabbing Colette’s arm with such force that she yelped in pain.

“Don’t hurt her!” Mum screamed, which earned her a backhand across the face from one of the Germans.

“Mummy!” Colette whimpered as the German twisted her arm, sending pain ricocheting up her shoulder.

At that moment, a middle-aged German officer with close-cropped hair and ice-blue eyes stepped through splintered remains of the doorway, and the men who’d seized the family promptly snapped to attention. Mum gasped, shooting a terrified glance at Colette.

The man strode into their apartment like he owned the place, stopping just a foot away from Mum. “Annabel Marceau,” he said flatly, as if he was disappointed in her very name. “At last we meet.”

“I—I don’t know who you are,” Mum said. In response, the German holding her shook her a little, and the officer laughed, his face devoid of humor.

“Oh, now, I don’t think that is true at all,” he said, his perfect French tainted by his German accent. “We would have met last week, in fact, had you stopped to say hello. Or was there not time while you were committing your theft?”

Papa’s head snapped around and he glared at Mum. Colette could feel his fury across the room—not anger with the Germans, but anger at Mum for putting them in this situation.

“Roger, I—” Mum said softly, tears in her eyes. But he looked away in disgust and muttered something to the German holding him.

“In case you need a reminder, Frau Marceau, I’m Sturmbannführer Gustav Mockel,” the officer said, his voice a practiced purr. “But perhaps you’ll remember me better as the owner of the two bracelets you stole.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annabel said, holding her chin high.

Mockel took a step closer, his nose nearly touching Mum’s now. And then, he lifted his palm and slapped her once, hard, across the right cheek. Mum gasped in pain, and Colette yelped, which only made the German holding her twist her arm more tightly.

“Then allow me to refresh your memory,” Mockel said.

“But let’s talk at my place rather than yours, shall we?

” He snapped his fingers and gestured to the door.

The Germans holding Mum, Papa, and Colette began shoving them in that direction, but Colette summoned her courage, kicked the man holding her in the shin, and twisted away, running for the door to her bedroom.

All she could think about was getting to Liliane.