“Jesus. We’re back to this?” Sophie turned away to the wall of landscapes. Her gaze fell on a richly rendered image of a poppy field beneath an azure sky. The crimson flowers were scattered like drops of blood across the swath of earth, beautiful and oddly macabre all at the same time. “Again, I don’t want anything from you in exchange.”

“In this war, everyone wants something. But I’m having difficulty determining what it is you really want.”

Sophie tried to temper the unexpected emotions that were bubbling up uncontrolled and flooding her chest, making it hard to breathe. “I’ll tell you what I wanted this afternoon. For one beautifully horrifying second this afternoon in front of the basilica, I thought that I would simply draw my knife and bury it in the major’s neck. I wanted to kill him. Later, I almost wanted the fucking sergeant to open that wardrobe door so that I’d have an excuse.” She took a shaky breath, her hands closing into fists. “I hate them. The Nazis. So much so that sometimes it makes me afraid that I will not be able to think through it.” She forced her hands to relax and turned away from the bloody poppies to face Estelle.

The woman was merely gazing at her, and if she was at all disturbed by what Sophie had just said, she didn’t show it.

“I sound like a lunatic,” Sophie mumbled. “Perhaps there really is something wrong with me.”

“What?”

“It’s been suggested a number of times that there is something unnatural about me.”

“Is there?”

“You tell me.”

Estelle studied her for a long time. Sophie resisted the urge to squirm.

“If the Nazis have done anything well,” Estelle said, “it’s to make us capable of hate beyond logic.”

“Yes,” Sophie agreed faintly.

“That is not unnatural.” Estelle continued to watch her. “I think I find it reassuring.”

Sophie straightened her sleeve. “Tomorrow morning I will leave this apartment, and you will never see me again if that is your wish. And while I have asked for your help, know that with or without it, I will accomplish what I came here to do.”

The woman who faced her toyed with the small pendant at her throat. “Have you come here as an assassin, Sophie Beaufort?” She used the name Sophie had given the Gestapo. “To kill?”

“No. I’ve come to use them.” She chose her words with care, knowing she couldn’t reveal too much. Not yet. “I’ve come to make their own Nazi arrogance their downfall.”

The questions she had expected were remarkably absent. Estelle merely pursed her lips. A few times she looked as though she might speak before seeming to change her mind. The silence stretched.