Ivy scooted to her usual place beside her and nestled in. “There are only a few lines left. Here we go. ‘But I have been remembering not only the way you draw out your camera and find the beauty in the world. I remember too the way you looked at me and saw something far different. You saw an ugliness that you named hatred. That, my sweet one, has scarcely left my mind. I have tried to deny it. I have tried to excuse it. I have sworn to God and myself that I will make it right. But in all truth, I know only this: I am weak, and I am afraid. I fear what else I do not see, that you would. I fear the man I will become if you are not shining your light into my soul. How could I have come so quickly to need you so much? I do not know. But you have become for me the proof that God does indeed bring beauty from ashes.’”

Slowly, reverently it looked like, Ivy lowered the page. “Well.” Her voice was a mere murmur after her reading. “We knew he was a man of depth.”

“Mm.” He was more than that. He was a man who deserved to have someone fighting beside him. She pushed to her feet. “Help me get ready, would you? I intend to pounce on Blinker and Daddy the moment the Halls arrive.”

Ivy all but flew to the dressing table and brandished the brush as though it were Arthur’s Excalibur. “At your service, lady fair! We will wage a war of smiles and curls. And we will emerge victorious.”

Laughing, Lily settled on the stool. How could they possibly lose, with Ivy on her side?

SATURDAY, 8 JUNE 1918

Zivon folded the newspaper and checked his watch. He still had an hour before he was due at the office for his half day. Usually he’d have gone for a run with Clarke this morning, but the rain was coming down in earnest, rumbles of thunder punctuating the deluge. Not a day for running.

Nor a day for visitors. So why was there a knock at his door?

Zivon pushed to his feet. Probably a neighbor needing to borrow something. Or lend him something. Mrs. Hamilton, the landlord’s wife, often stopped by with a new armful of books from her secondhand shop. When she’d discovered that he liked to read but had none of his collection with him, she’d taken to acting as a lending library.

He swung open the door, blinking at the last person he’d expected to see. “Admiral?”

Hall lifted his brows. “May I?”

“Ah. Yes, of course. Apologies.” Zivon stepped aside and held the door wide. He gave his flat a quick glance, never more glad that Batya had drilled military precision and neatness into him while Matushka had him conjugating Latin verbs. The place finally looked lived in, but tidy.