Only animals, it seemed. A fact they would surely emphasize if ever called to task for it. But how could they guarantee, with the current grain shortages, that cereal currently earmarked for animals wouldn’t get appropriated for human consumption? How could they know?

Or did they not care?

Drake’s eyes slid shut. He wasn’t entirely certain how he would go about finding these bacteria cultures—those answers would require some questions he didn’t yet know to ask. But he would do some research, put out some feelers, inquire discreetly of some friends.

The clock in the hall chimed the hour, pulling him from those thoughts. Abuelo would be expecting him downstairs again soon—he’d better actually read Dot’s letters beforehand.

He pulled the packet of them from his pocket and unbound them, sorting them by date. The first detailed her initial days working in Room 40, how she was being trained to type, a bit about Lady Hambro. Chatty but also decidedly dishonest, as it said nothing about how difficult it had been to force herself from the flat, and Drake knew very well it was a fight she would have had with herself.

The second letter made mention of a new friend she’d made—Margot. This, perhaps, was the news Abuelo was mentioning. New friends were hard enough for Dot to come by that it qualified as noteworthy. Thank you, Father. He’d been mentioning his sister’s need for companionship in his prayers every night.

When he opened the third, a snapshot slid out as he unfolded the letter. He picked it up and sucked in a breath.

He didn’t even glance at his sister’s image, smiling from the right side of the photo. He was too busy looking at the figure on the left.

The dark-eyed nameless girl.

She stared up at him with an intensity that a camera should not have been able to capture so well. Her lips didn’t smile, exactly, but they didn’t not either. The corners were turned up just the slightest bit, in a way that put Mona Lisa to shame.

The black-and-white image couldn’t reveal details like eye color or the shade of suit she wore, but his memory supplied the image’s lack. Deepest brown eyes, so dark they were nearly black. The day he’d seen her, she’d been in dark blue—he couldn’t have said whether this skirt and jacket were exactly the same or not, but he imagined them as such.

Just as he imagined the snap of her wit ready to trip off her tongue.

With a corner of his own mouth tugging up in a smile, he turned to the letter, propping the photo up on his desk.