She sat on their bed and let Nico unlace her shoes and unwind her shawl and take off her dress. He helped her into her nightgown, leading her arms into the sleeves as if he were dressing a child, and he turned back the covers and eased her onto her back. She lay unblinking, unseeing, her heart a cold, dead weight in her chest.

She was still awake when the sun rose again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away,” Nico whispered. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t think of how I would explain it to Rosa and my father. Your sadness, I mean. At least this way . . .”

“I had a few hours.”

“All we know is that they were sent away. That’s all.”

“It’s enough.”

“If I could take this from you I would. If I could bear it all for you I would.”

She licked at her dry lips, swallowed, and found, at last, her voice. “It makes no sense. Why send them to a labor camp if they’re too frail to work? I can see why they’d imprison young people—I don’t think it’s right, but I can understand the why of it. But my parents are no threat to anyone.”

“I know. I know,” Nico soothed.

“My father has spent his life caring for others. He’s good, every bit of him is good and decent and kind, and my mother is, too. I . . . I don’t understand why they hate us so. I never will.”

He rose soon after, though he encouraged her to stay in bed awhile longer. “Rest while you can, and I’ll fetch you when I come in for breakfast.”

But how could she sleep? It had happened. Her fears had come true. Her parents were gone, sent to some far-off place, and not only did she have to live with that knowledge, she also had to carry on as if nothing had changed. In a few minutes she would go downstairs and eat her breakfast and do her chores and no one, apart from Nico and Father Bernardi, could ever know that her heart had been broken.

A WEEK LATER, in the middle of the night, the German siege of Monte Grappa began. It shook the house and made plaster dust fall like snow from the ceiling, and outside the cows were lowing and Selva was howling, but Nico’s arms held her close. He was warm against her back, one of his hands covering the curve of her belly, the other curled around her head. He would keep her safe, she knew he would, but the guns were so close, and with every new boom and rumble she grew more and more afraid.

“It sounds far closer than it is,” he murmured against her ear.

“When will it stop?”