“Oma,” I whispered. “Why don’t you come home with me?”

“I’m needed here. I’ll be fine,” she whispered dismissively. Then she straightened and, for the benefit of an audience that may or may not have even been listening, added loudly, “Thank you for coming over to help me.”

I had just slipped back beneath the covers of my bed with Georg and Gisela when the roar of an engine sounded. A car door opened, and there was a brief moment of silence before I heard shouting outside my villa.

I sprang out of bed, rushing toward the window to crack it open just a little. The icy air rushed in, and so did the sound of the Gestapo at Adele’s front door.

“Open the door, Mrs. Rheinberg!”

How much could she bear?

“Have you got the wrong house, young man?” Adele called from her bedroom window. She sounded stubborn, irritated…and weak. “This is Adele Rheinberg. Mrs. Adele Rheinberg. I am eighty-six years old. Do you really have business waking up an eighty-six-year-old woman in the middle of the night?”

“You’ll need to let us in, Mrs. Rheinberg!”

There was a long pause.

“No,” Adele called back, almost thoughtfully. “No, I don’t think I will.”

Cursing, I ran down the stairs, pulled on a coat, and stepped outside my front door. I made it to the hedge before Dietger came running toward me.

“Sofie, go back inside,” he hissed, pointing to my door. “This isn’t about you.”

“What’s happening with Adele?” I demanded. “She’s an old woman, Dietger! They have no business with her. Please go find out what’s wrong.”

“We need to let this play out, Sofie.” He sighed, shaking his head as he glanced toward her house. He dropped his voice, then admitted, “I don’t even know why they’re here. I didn’t call them.”

“This is your last warning, Mrs. Rheinberg,” someone shouted.

If Adele answered this time, I couldn’t hear her. I took a step past Dietger, out onto the sidewalk, just in time to see Adele’s front door open. It wasn’t her on the other side, but the woman from the studio apartment on the ground floor, looking bewildered and disheveled as the large contingent of Gestapo filed past her. My panic clawed at my throat and left me flushing hot. I took a step toward her house.

“Sofie,” Dietger said. He was much closer than I’d realized, and his voice was low. “Go home. Please. Let them handle this.”