“Are you sure your fever is gone, shikse? You shouldn’t have done that.” Hania flashed a teasing grin since my move had left me vulnerable to check.

“What do you want?”

When the query left my lips, she paused in the middle of reaching for the knight. Her hand hovered over the board for a moment, then she scooped up the pebble, set it on the ground beside her, and placed me in check.

“Right now? To win this chess game.” Despite the jest, I detected a tightness in her voice, and a slight crease formed along her brow when she looked at me.

“I saw you, Hania. With those men.” I let the words sink in before sitting up straighter. “Tell me what you want from me.”

Her expression didn’t change. Silence stretched between us, but the loud voice in my head demanded to know why I’d provoked her. The pounding of my heartbeat drummed against my ears while she took a moment to light a cigarette, exhaled a steady stream of smoke, and cleared her throat.

“When my husband and I handed our two sons over to the resistance, all we knew was that they’d be disguised as Catholics. I don’t know their fake names, where they were sent, nothing. After the war, I’ll need someone who worked for the resistance in Warsaw to get me in touch with the woman who took them.” She watched a few ashes fall to the frigid floor, then raised her dark eyes to mine. “You’re going to help me locate my sons when we get home.”

“How long have you been planning this?” I had a feeling I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it from her. I wanted her to be honest with me for once.

“Since I found out you were a resistance member from Warsaw.”

“Right after I was flogged. You’ve had this in mind for the entirety of our friendship. And if I don’t cooperate, you’ll blackmail me like you did those men.”

It was useless to pretend otherwise, so she didn’t. Hania took a slow drag on her cigarette and reassumed the mask of stony indifference I’d seen on her before, but now I realized I’d never seen it. Not for what it was—detachment. From me, from herself, from everything.

“With SS connections, it’s easy to make people cooperate,” Hania said with a chuckle. “I thought it would be easy to strike a deal with you, given your position, but you never gave me much opportunity. Not until your flogging.”

I lifted a hand to the back of my shoulder, feeling the uneven lumps of skin that suddenly throbbed as if they were fresh. “You helped me because I wasn’t in a position to refuse.”