“No. Only, I think, to want justice for ourselves above mercy for other souls. Because if God treated us that way, where would we be?” A warm smile settled onto the priest’s face. “I can answer that one too, of course. Unforgiven—that is where we would be. For it is only when we forgive that we can receive His forgiveness.”

Zivon’s hands went limp against his knees, and he sagged against the back of the chair. Lily had been right. There was much he had to sort through in his own mind, his own soul.

He should have come to visit this man weeks ago.

MONDAY, 17 JUNE 1918

Could nothing go right? Nadya would have cursed, but she only knew the right words in Russian, and muttering those on a London train would garner attention she didn’t want. “Are you certain?” she asked in French.

Evgeni lifted his brows and made himself comfortable on the uncomfortable seat. “I am certain that’s what Higgins’s neighbor said. I can’t, of course, be certain it’s the truth.”

She had to settle for hissing out a breath. The travel had been grueling, and finding a cheap room to rent had been ridiculously difficult. Apparently housing was in a bit of a crisis, thanks to the refugees who had flooded England from Belgium and other occupied territories. But this turn of events—that Higgins, their sole contact here, had been arrested—was by far the worst. “Did he leave us a message or anything?”

Face grim, Evgeni shrugged. “When he was arrested, he also missed paying his rent, and the landlord disposed of most of his personal items, including any correspondence.”

How, then, were they to discover where his brother lived? Higgins’s knowledge of the location of Zivon’s flat had been the silver lining to Paul’s mistake in asking an acquaintance to follow him. But Evgeni had been right, clearly. Their contact was now in prison, and they were left with no help.

“We find him the way Higgins did, then. We start at the Admiralty building.”

“Risky. He’d probably spot us before we spotted him.” Evgeni traced a finger along the edge of her hand resting between them on the seat. He was always doing that. Little touches. Absent-minded ones. They’d bothered her at first. A claim, those touches. A tether.

Now they brought a bit of peace to her heart, unless she thought too hard about it. And then the fact that they’d stopped bothering her started to bother her anew.

She shook her head to clear it of such circles. “If not that, then what options do we have?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he knit his brow and tapped a finger to his chin, that caricature of thought he always fell back on. “Someone will know where he lives. We simply have to find the someone and convince them to help.”