As Elise stood, Cate couldn’t believe how stoic she was being. “Elise, we can wait longer. The original plan was that we leave anyway and meet her an hour’s walk from here. She could meet us still, perhaps she just had to change the plan at the last minute?” But she could tell from the look on Elise’s face that she had already well and truly given up hope.

“No. If she were sticking to the plan, she would have waited for me, she wouldn’t have left the house without seeing me first. I knew when I woke up and she was gone that everything was unraveling. And she was supposed to leave a sign. Remember? She hasn’t done any of those things.”

Cate wished she had answers, or something helpful to say. “You think she’s fallen in love with him, don’t you?”

Elise’s throat bobbed, the only telltale sign that she was upset. She didn’t speak for what felt like a long while but could have been only a couple of minutes. “I know she has.”

Cate’s own belief in Adelaide wavered then. If even her own sister thought it were possible . . . “Elise, she knows what kind of man he is. I don’t believe she could have.”

But she also saw the way Elise looked over at Harry before she spoke again. “I know how easy it is to fall for a foreigner, so who am I to talk?”

Cate knew as well as Elise that there was no comparison between Harry and Wolfgang, but she understood the sentiment. “You really think we should go now?”

Elise nodded. “What if I choose to believe that she hasn’t gone to him, that she hasn’t betrayed us, and then SS officers storm my house looking for you and shoot you where you stand? I’d never be able to live with myself.”

“I’m so sorry, Elise. I know how badly you wanted to get her away from here.”

“But if I leave her behind, if I’m wrong . . .” Elise shook her head. “She can always come back here. No one will suspect anything, I suppose, and I can recruit her into the resistance with me later. If he hasn’t corrupted her, that is.”

Elise picked up her bag and Cate quickly did the same, and soon they were all standing, staring at one another, in the center of the room. There was no arguing with Elise when her mind was set. It was the first time since the night Cate had arrived that they’d all been downstairs together, and Cate found herself standing beside Jack again.

“We leave now,” Elise said. “We follow the plan, moving as fast as we can when it’s safe. It’s going to be dark soon, so we have no time left to spare.”