“They will. But I’m hoping they’ll assume it’s a case of straightforward desertion. Judging by their accents, both of them were from Austria. And the border isn’t so very far. A determined man can walk there in a few days.”

“You’re sure?”

“No. But it was the best I could do.” His eyes still closed, he reached out and grasped hold of her near hand. “Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. If not for you, Rosa and I would both have been raped. And what if Meier had opened the door to our room? He’d have seen everything.”

“I know. That’s why I did it.” Now he turned to look her in the eyes. “I need to help Papà with the animals, and I need to wash, too. Go back to bed. I’ll be up as soon as I can.”

She waited for him, shivering and alone, and though it could only have been a scant hour before he returned, it felt like far longer. He undressed as quietly as he ever did, and then he went to the window and knelt before it, and she heard him murmuring in prayer. Just as she was falling asleep he slipped in beside her, his hair still damp and smelling of Rosa’s homemade soap.

“Are you all right?” she whispered. In that moment, she’d have gladly surrendered every object she owned, every dream she’d ever had, just to take away his pain. He was good and gentle and kind, and he’d suffer for the rest of his life because of those two wicked men.

“No.” The despair in his voice tore at her heart. “My family tease me, you know. I’m the one who can’t bear to see the pig slaughtered. I’m the one who used to faint at the sight of blood. And yet . . . it was so easy to kill those men. Just like he’d told me it would be.”

“Who?”

“An Englishman. A prisoner of war I met. He showed us some of the ways he’d been trained to fight. To kill. I’ve no idea why. Maybe he was bored.” Nico held her even closer, his arms tightening around her back, one big hand cradling her head to his chest. “You take a knife, and you come up behind the man you are going to kill. You pull back his head and stab him in the neck, in the side, just under his ear. Then you punch your arm forward, before you can think twice, and rip out his throat. Just like I did tonight.”

“You mustn’t dwell on—”

“The Englishman warned me that it would be easy. So easy to kill a man like that. But he also told me it would be the hardest thing I would ever do.”

“Was he right?”