He lay back on his bed, staring at his ceiling, and became thinly aware that his parents were talking in their bedroom down the hall.

No.

Isaac sat up. They weren’t talking.

They were arguing.

His father’s voice was hard, his mother’s pleading. He heard his name: They were arguing about him. Loud enough to be heard through his closed door.

“. . . no time left”—he heard his father’s muffled voice—“tonight . . .”

“But . . . haven’t given him proper . . . should be trained . . .”

Isaac thought, Should be trained? He inched out of bed and opened his door, holding his breath.

“. . . too young. In another few months,” his father said, and Isaac could hear clearly now, “he’d be old enough. That’s when his training would have begun. But it’s too late, and for now, the less he knows, the safer he’ll be. As soon as it’s dark he must go.”

The word relocated floated back into Isaac’s brain.

“What about the others?”

A pause. His father said, “They’ve already gone into hiding. I haven’t heard from anyone else on the team for months.”

His mother, then. “Are you sure—”

“They know,” his father interrupted, almost shouting. “I’m sure. They know about me. They know where we are. If we stay, they’ll find us, and then they’ll find Isaac.”

They? Who? The Nazis?

Isaac crept down the hallway toward their bedroom. The door to his parents’ room was open a crack.

His father lowered his voice. “There’s something else. I’ve heard that a mission is being planned by the resistance. Against the Reichsprotektor. Even if that mission goes well, it could mean reprisals. Upheaval. We’d all be in even greater danger.”

“What if we all went together?” his mother asked.

“Impossible,” his father answered. “They know about me, so I would draw them. They’d find us all. If he goes alone, he has a better chance.”

“Perhaps I can fashion a disguise,” his mother said. Her voice had risen in pitch, and she spoke faster. “Protective cover. I can make a shapeshift.”

“That may well attract these hunters. But I do have an idea. One that might work.” His father paused. “I hope.”

Isaac found it hard to breathe.

His father went on. “In the archives, I’ve found—” And just then Isaac stepped on the hallway floorboard that creaked.

He froze, heart pounding in the silence that followed, and then his mother was standing in the doorframe, and she opened the door wide, the light from behind her shadowing her face.

“Isaac,” she said. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.”

He wanted to yell, Disturb me? What are you talking about?