“Um.” This was more difficult than Gabriel had thought it would be. He reached for the rest of the documents in the folder but Lia’s hand suddenly appeared on his, stilling his actions. He hadn’t heard her come up behind him.

“Gabriel told me that when you returned from the war, you looked for Sophie,” she said to William. “That you thought that maybe she hadn’t died in Poland working for the Foreign Office,” she said. “Can you tell us a little more about why you thought that?”

Now it was William’s turn to look out the window and evade their eyes.

“Grandfather?”

“It was foolish. And I can’t…that is to say I don’t…” He turned back, his lined face set in even harder lines. “I was off my head then, suffering delusions and imagining things that weren’t there. Morphine, self-pity. Guilt that I survived when my family did not. I’m not proud of who I was when I got back. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I understand. But can you tell me what you imagined?” Lia pressed gently.

“What?”

“What was it you imagined that made you look for your sister even after you believed her to be dead?”

William set the photo of Sophie down on top of the one of Millbrook and stared at her.

“Please,” Lia said.

“I imagined an angel.”

Gabriel and Lia both remained silent.

“Like I said, off my head.” William slid his glasses back on.

“Tell me about this angel,” Lia replied.

“Now who’s off her head?”

“Well then, we can be cracked together,” Lia replied easily. “We’ll make a good pair.”

His grandfather didn’t answer for a long time, and just when Gabriel was sure he wouldn’t speak, he did.

“Very well.” William’s voice was rough. “The angel I imagined looked a lot like you, Miss Leclaire.” He chuckled but it sounded forced. “I still have this very image in my head. She was standing before me, under a tree, wearing a white robe with a bright light shining from behind her. She told me that my sister had never believed I was dead. That Sophie had never given up on me. That she knew I would make it home.” His gnarled fingers curled into the edges of the blanket on his lap. “Which is, of course, impossible. Because Sophie died long before I was ever captured.”

“Where did you look?” Lia asked. “When you tried to find your sister?”

“The war offices, other government offices. Everything was so…” He seemed to be searching for a word. “Disordered. Confused. So many people missing, so much destroyed.”

“Did you find anything?”