Would the aufseherin from Birkenau, the one with the cold, dark stare, go back to her old life, as if she’d only been away on some sort of demented holiday? Would Klap’s former teaching colleagues ever think to ask where she had been during the war? Would any of them ever be compelled to give an accounting of their crimes?

Already she knew the answer. It was no, for there was no justice, or peace, or mercy left in the world. Simply—no.

On the fifth day the train stopped in a little town that might have been in Germany or Poland or any point in between. The expressions of horror on the faces of passersby when she and the other women lurched from the fetid boxcar and staggered through their tidy streets would have made Nina laugh if she’d yet had the strength to do so.

It was Stella who propped her up, who bore her weight, who kept her moving as the guards drove them ever onward. And she wanted so badly to tell the girl to just set her down at the side of the road and keep walking, for the bacteria from the louse bite she hadn’t even felt were going to kill her anyway.

Her throat was so dry, and it hurt so awfully to swallow, let alone speak, but she had to make sure Stella knew what to do.

“Promise to go to Mezzo Ciel. You’ll find a home there. You won’t be alone.”

“Of course I won’t be alone, because you’ll be with me. Now stop talking and keep moving. They’ll shoot us if we stop.”

“Rosa will take such good care of you. I know she will . . .”

It was so hard to keep going. She was becoming a shadow, closer to wraith than woman, stripped bare of everything save her stubbornly yearning heart.

She tried to sit down. Tried to persuade Stella to stop, just for a moment, just stop and let her rest. They both needed to rest. But Stella would not listen.

“We’re almost there, Nina. Only another kilometer or so.”

“Promise me you’ll tell them I tried. Tell them how much I love them all. Tell Lucia . . .”

“You’ll tell them yourself. Come on—”

“It’s too far.”

“But we’re here—can’t you see? We’re here in Terezin. No one can hurt us now, and we never have to see that awful Klap again—and there are doctors, Nina, doctors and nurses from the Red Cross.”

Stella was crying, and then she was shouting at someone, and Nina plucked at her sleeve, trying to get her to pay attention.

“It’s all right. You go on without me,” she told her friend. Her only friend.