Rebeka didn’t say anything more for a long moment, which he supposed was only fair. The whole world was on fire, eternally smoldering with the flames of good intentions. People who thought they were doing the right thing. No one, he supposed, ever did a thing because they believed they were in the wrong. They just accepted any bad they caused as the cost of something greater.

He didn’t want her pity. Not when she’d suffered so much, from so many injustices carried out by people who believed wholly in what they did. Was there any good to be done in this world? Or was it always only a choice between bad and worse?

“Now you can do better,” Rebeka said, a quaver in her voice. “You care enough to want to help. That alone means something. It was enough to drive Germans like Helene and your radio operators to do bigger acts.”

A lot of good it had done Helene. “I wanted to prove I could make a difference out here. But what if I only keep making things worse?” He shifted forward in the darkness, his hand itching where she’d touched it. “All these technological advances, these modern marvels of science, and all we seem able to do with them is make everyone’s lives miserable. Bigger bombs, deadlier wars. And even though I think I’m helping the right side of this hell . . . am I really helping at all?”

The corners of her eyes shone too bright in the starlight as she lifted her chin. Proud, determined. “You already have.”

Phillip’s voice stuck in his throat. “Rebeka . . .”

His instinct was to deny it. Put himself down and everything he’d done. But he’d made a difference—the tiniest of a ripple, and she was right. They’d rescued her from almost certain death at Siegen. The village they just left could send back word to the Resistance—warn them of what was coming. And if they could answer that informant’s request for information out of Wewelsburg . . .

“I let a terrible thing happen to my family, even as I saved Daniel,” Rebeka said. “I knew what was happening. But there wasn’t time to save them all.”

“But you did save him. And yourself.”

Rebeka shrank back. Disbelieving, maybe. But he’d only spoken the truth. Even if she couldn’t see it.

“I did,” she said at last. “And what you did . . . What you created . . .” She shivered in the cold air. “Maybe there’s still some good it can do, too.”

He bit back a sour laugh. “We’ll see about that.”

“Quiet,” Simone whispered. They hadn’t even heard her stir.

She padded toward them through the cabin on bare feet and crouched down. Something had shifted in the darkness outside; Phillip could feel it. He could no longer hear the roar of insects.