“Only to fit together a piece in a puzzle.”

“Fair enough,” Dillon says and smiles.

Harry feels Edie’s fingers release. She turns away behind him.

“Could I maybe leave you the address of our hotel, just in case anything comes to mind?”

“I doubt that it will, but it can’t hurt, can it?”

Dillon has long yellow fingernails, Harry sees, as he hands the piece of paper over. Dillon folds the paper and winks as he stows it in his smoking jacket pocket.

“Harry?”

When he turns, Edie is pointing at the display cabinet.

“Harry, this is mine.”

Her finger is pressed against the glass. Beyond it is a lozenge of gray metal suspended from a tattered brown ribbon.

“It can’t be,” he says.

“Would you like to see the item, miss?”

Dillon unlocks the cabinet with a key and then dangles the object from his finger. Edie watches it as if it is some kind of power-issuing amulet.

“It’s mine, Harry. It’s my Saint Christopher.”

Dillon twists the ribbon around in his fingers. It spins in the light, and the relief shows on the metal. Harry feels inexplicably repulsed by the thing.

“Patron saint of travelers—happen it’s traveled back to you, miss? Would you like me to find you the price?”

“It could be anyone’s.” Harry looks beyond the turning medal. Edie seems to be mesmerized by it. “It’s not yours,” he says.

“YOU THINK HE knows something, don’t you?” The bell rings behind Edie as they step out onto the street.

“Yes.”

“Why is it that you want to know about this?” Edie repeats the question that Dillon asked of Harry. “Why does this Blue Angel business matter? What exactly is it that you want to know?”

“There were some days, toward the end, when we weren’t together, when I don’t know where Francis was. I’d just like to know where he went. Who did he talk to? How was he feeling? If he came into Ypres, what for? It would just satisfy my curiosity to have the pieces complete.”

“Your puzzle might have just got more complicated. That was my Saint Christopher, and you know it.”

Chapter Forty-Two: Harry

Chapter Forty-Two

Harry

Ypres, September 1921

WHEN DID YOU LAST HAVE IT?”

Harry turns his glass. The table is gritty beneath it. Edie puts her hand to the other side of the glass, jamming his movement, forcing him to look up. The tower, behind her, is gnarled into a shape that looks feudal, like a relic of the twelfth century. It all seems so long ago.

“October 1917.”