How long had it been since Nina had set foot in such a homey place? Apart from the upholstered chair and footstool, the room held a desk and chair, a small stove pumping out so much heat that her fingers began to tingle, and an oil lamp with a frilly glass shade. The rosy glow it cast belonged to another world entirely.

“Come forward,” Klap ordered. “Why did you think you could steal?”

Nina didn’t answer straightaway; she was too surprised. The oberaufseherin had spoken to her in Italian, not German.

“Out with it!” the woman barked.

“I took the grease to make a salve for my hands. To heal them. To heal the burns on my friend’s arms.”

“You lie.”

“Her burns will become infected if they aren’t treated. We all have burns. We all have chilblains and sores that are making us sick.”

“What do I care if you fall sick?”

“Then care about what your superiors will say. If none of us can work, who will make your guns? And it takes so little to keep us well.” The words were out of her mouth before Nina could stop herself. She held her breath, waiting for the inevitable outburst. Waiting for Klap to scream for the guard.

But Klap only frowned and fussed with a loose thread on the upholstered arm of her chair. And then she surprised Nina again. “What do you know of healing? Are you a doctor?”

“No. Only a student of medicine.” That was close enough to the truth.

“The doctor in Zschopau is an idiot. I want you to look at my leg. Help me with my boot.” And then, when Nina didn’t leap forward immediately, “Are you an idiot? Didn’t you hear me?”

“I did. I wasn’t certain that I understood properly.”

“I want you to look at my leg. Is that simple enough?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

Nina approached the footstool and took hold of the woman’s heel. Slowly, carefully, she pulled off the boot, revealing a leg that was bandaged from shin to knee.

“I didn’t realize it was bothering you. I never saw you limping.”

“As if I would ever let the others know that I’m afflicted. I’m not stupid. Go on—look at it.”

“May I have more light? By the window, perhaps?”

It took a while for the oberaufseherin to rise so that Nina might push her chair and footstool a scant meter closer to the window, and then the curtains needed to be drawn back and the window heaved open to admit some fresh air.

Crouching by the footstool, Nina unwound the smelly and none-too-clean bandage on Klap’s outstretched leg. Nearly all the exposed skin, from her lower shin up to her knee, was covered in a bright red rash that radiated heat when Nina let her hand hover a centimeter or so above it.