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Colette couldn’t believe how much Liliane still looked like Liliane after all this time. She had the same rosebud lips, the same piercing green eyes, the same milky skin, the same rosy cheeks, even the very same dimples, the ones that had looked so familiar on the face of Lucas’s daughter, Millie.

Yes, Liliane had aged, but Colette could still recognize the girl who had once shared her room, had snuggled up against her to fall asleep, had held her hand as they hurried along the streets of Paris.

“I thought I’d lost you,” Colette said when they finally pulled back from their embrace.

“All these years, Liliane, I thought you were dead.”

“I’ve been here all along,” Liliane said, staring into Colette’s eyes. “They… they told me you didn’t exist. That I had dreamed you. That you were an imaginary friend I should try to forget.”

Colette wiped away a tear. “Who told you that?”

Liliane glanced at Lucas. “The man and the woman who raised me. But they were not my parents, were they?”

“No, they were not.” Colette took her sister’s hands again. “The man took you from our bedroom window on the night our mother and father and I were arrested.”

“Arrested?” Liliane asked. “What for?”

“Our mother was a jewel thief,” Colette said, and she watched as the light came on in Liliane’s eyes. There was some corner of her that knew, that remembered. “She stole from Nazis and collaborators to give to the French Resistance.”

“Like Robin Hood.” Liliane nodded slowly. “Our mother used to tell us stories about him, didn’t she? That’s what the eagle’s call was from.”

“Yes, Liliane,” Colette said, her heart overflowing.

“I thought I had dreamed it all.”

“It was real. It was all real.”

Liliane blinked at her, as if not quite sure she wasn’t seeing a mirage, and then turned to Lucas. “How on earth did you find her?”

“She found me, actually,” he said. “With a little help from the bracelet.”

“The… bracelet?”

“The one that belonged to Hubert Verdier. It turns out Granddad took it from the hem of your nightgown the night he took you. He gave it to Hubert as payment for sponsoring his citizenship application.”

“I’ve had the other half all these years,” Colette said. Liliane’s eyes widened.

“Hubert loaned me his half for display in the museum, which set everything in motion,” Lucas said. “Colette spotted it, and then Daniel did, too, and, well, now we’re here.”

“Daniel?” Liliane said, looking perplexed as she glanced his way.

“Daniel Rosman,” Colette said. “The son of Maman’s friend Hélène Rosman, the one we saw that day we went to the Vél’ d’Hiv.”

“I remember,” Liliane said. “But how…?” Her voice trailed off, as if she couldn’t imagine what to ask next.

“It’s a long story, Mom,” Lucas said. “And we’ll tell you everything. Can we come in?”

“Yes, of course, of course. Where are my manners? Come in, everyone, please, come in.”

After Liliane had served them all coffee, Lucas introduced Daniel and Aviva, and then Lucas and Colette dove into an explanation of how Colette had come across the bracelet, how Daniel had become involved, and how the road had eventually led back to Hubert Verdier—and to the man who had raised Liliane as his own.

“And where is your granddad, Lucas?” Liliane asked. “Does he know about all of this?”

“He does,” Colette answered. “He said he thought our parents and I had died at the hands of the Germans and that he was saving you by keeping you.”

Liliane nodded slowly. “But you all lived?”

“No.” Colette’s heart felt heavy. “Our mother was killed. But our father and I survived. Papa was broken, Liliane, and he left me with Uncle Frédéric and Aunt Marie, friends of our mother’s who you knew when you were young.

After the war, our mother’s brother, Uncle Leo, came for me. He was a jewel thief, too, as am I.”

Liliane raised her eyebrows. “You steal jewels?” She glanced at the others, who were listening intently. “And they all know?”

There was laughter around the room. “They do now,” Colette said.

“In truth, Aviva has known for only two weeks. I told Daniel just a few days ago. And now that Lucas and Millie are family, I figured they might as well know, too. I thought the secret would die with me, that there would be no one to carry on our family tradition. But now…”

Liliane’s eyes widened. “You want to train Lucas and Millie to be thieves?”

“Only if they want to,” Colette said. “But whatever they do, as long as they are doing good in the world, they’re honoring our mother and their family. Our tradition will live on.”

“Do you not have children of your own, Colette?” Liliane asked gently.

“No.” Colette felt a lump of regret in her throat.

How might she have lived her life differently if she hadn’t blamed herself for Liliane’s death?

Would she have fallen in love? Had a family of her own?

She had denied herself those pieces of happiness for so many years because she believed she didn’t deserve them.

“But Aviva has been like a daughter to me.” Aviva reached over and squeezed her hand as Colette added, “My life has been filled with love, despite my best efforts to sabotage myself.”

Liliane leaned back in her chair and stared at Colette. “I still can’t believe this. After all these years.”

“What do you remember, Mom?” Lucas asked, and as Liliane turned to him with a smile, Colette felt a surge of joy. Here she was with her sister—her sister— and two new family members that she hadn’t even imagined. “Do you remember anything about your past with Colette?”

Liliane considered this for a moment. “I remember little things. The smell of a pipe—it must have been our father’s.”

“He used to smoke by the fire in the winter,” Colette said.

“Our mother sitting in a chair in the living room, sewing.”

“She used to sew her stolen jewels into the linings of our clothing, so that we would always have valuables with which to bargain our way out of a jam.” Colette smiled sadly.

“She couldn’t get herself out of trouble?”

Colette shook her head. “It was too late for her. She knew that Papa and I had been released, and I think she believed we would find you, and that we’d all be together. I think she must have found some peace as she met her end. I have spent decades feeling that I failed her.”

“I’m so sorry,” Liliane said.

“I am, too. Think how different both of our lives could have been.”

Liliane reached for Colette’s hands and held tight. “But we are here now, my dear sister. And we will never lose each other again.”

Colette wiped away a tear. “Maman would be so proud.”

Liliane smiled sadly. “I hardly remember her. Perhaps you could tell me stories.”

Colette blinked to clear her eyes, then she squeezed her sister’s hands and looked into her eyes. “It would be my honor.” She took a deep breath. “Once upon a time, in the village of Wentbridge, just at the edge of the Barnsdale Forest, lived a man named Robin Hood…”

Something flickered in Liliane’s eyes, a spark of familiarity, and as Colette recited the words her mother had said to her so very many times, she had the sense that at long last, an ocean away from where their story had begun, she and Liliane had finally found their way to where they belonged.