“It means nothing to you.” She drew a breath in, let it out. He knew. Drake knew it meant something. He’d understood last night that the tangle of feelings inside her couldn’t be put into regular language. He’d known what she meant. That Eighteen was I love you.

Why couldn’t Dot understand it too? Had Margot been such a bad friend, shown so little of herself? She thought she’d been honest. Showed her who she really was and been accepted. Maybe she’d been wrong.

Eighteen.

Memory? A fresh command? She rose and moved to DID’s window, where she could look out across the parade grounds. Folding her arms across her middle, clasping her opposite elbows, she tried. She tried.

God . . .

Her chest hurt. And her hair felt wrong. And the windowpane, when she rested her forehead against it, was so very cold.

Father . . .

Drake was out there, somewhere in France, searching through burned-out rubble for a codebook. Who knew which side of enemy lines it was on, or how safe he’d be. Whether he’d come back.

Lord . . .

What if he didn’t come back? What if the Sopwith was shot down, or enemy soldiers were guarding the wreck? What if he died and he never came home and Dot refused to speak to her again? What if that man who wasn’t Williams followed him or was lying in wait when he got back or planted a bomb in the plane?

What if he, too, looked at her one day like his sister had just done and decided she couldn’t possibly love him?

“Eighteen.” She whispered it to the glass and watched her breath make a patch of fog that expanded, halted, and contracted again so slowly. “Eighteen.” She lifted a finger and pressed it to the glass. To the fog. Drew a one. Then an eight.

It vanished, of course, as the fog receded. But her finger had left its oils on the glass. It would come back if she breathed on it again. Faintly, but visible. It was there. A prayer. A declaration.

She pushed away from the window and trudged toward the door. The admiral would need his office. And she had work to do.

“Why did I let you talk me into this?” Camden pushed aside another pine bough and ducked under it, holding it out of the way for Drake too.

He checked his compass again and smiled. “Because you were tired of sitting in an office all day.”

“There’s that. But if we were going to steal an airplane, we could have gone somewhere more pleasant.” Hands on his hips, Camden surveyed the forest around them as if the mere power of his scowl could make any zeppelin debris rise from the undergrowth.