Sometimes she just wanted to sleep. Burrow into the cold, damp earth and pretend it was her grave, the death she’d cheated. Sometimes she imagined the train came for her and she could sleep, sleep at long last.

But there had to be something on the other side of this nightmare—she had to believe it. It was the only way she could go on.

“We’ll kill them,” Liam said. “We’ll kill every damn Nazi that gets in our way.”

Daniel was leaning toward him, something unfamiliar in his features. It took Rebeka a few moments to recognize it as hope.

“You cannot promise that,” Rebeka said.

Liam unfolded as he turned to Daniel. His seriousness was far quieter and cooler than her brother’s, but the same fire burned under his skin. She didn’t miss the way Daniel looked back at him then, either—and for a moment, she dared to hope Daniel might believe in after, too.

“If you’ll help me get into Siegen, there isn’t a German alive who can stop me.” Liam’s voice was threaded with steel. “Not the entire German army combined.”

Daniel leaned closer toward him. “The shadow place,” he said.

Rebeka cocked her head, confused. For the briefest moment, she blinked and saw the crumbling tower again. Kreutzer and his burning, hateful face. The darkness always waiting in the back of her mind.

“Did you ever feel like there was something more out there?” Liam asked. “Another world, just around the corner from our own?”

His words knocked the breath out of her, but she shook her head. “I can’t say that I have.”

“Well, it’s real. I found it. A universe that exists just beside ours, and all it takes is the right frequency to bridge the gap.” His eyes were wild now—the eyes of a true believer. “And it’s full of this energy—a powerful energy. If we pull it into our world, we can do wondrous things with it. It’s—it’s easier if I show you.” Liam glanced toward Rebeka, as if asking her permission.

What else could she do? Daniel had already made up his mind. She nodded for him to go on.

Liam stood, clenching fists, and drew a deep breath. For a long minute, nothing happened, and Rebeka fidgeted, wondering what stupid game this boy and her brother had cooked up.

But then the air shifted—tingling, needling at the headache that lurked behind her eyes. The starlight flared around her, gilding the hay and rumpled sacks of grain. The sheep bleated again, wary. The night seemed to gather around Liam, wreathing him, until only the whites of his eyes gleamed out of the inky black.

“I can reach into that world, draw on its power, and store it up, and then I can command it—give it form.”