Their sextet fell silent, and for a long minute it was only brassy Glenn Miller on the radio and the sounds of London around them, autumn tickling brightly colored leaves and whispering a warning of rain. For a long minute, it was only Evangeline’s body warm against hers as they swayed to “Moonlight Serenade,” as Rebeka nestled in Phillip’s arms nearby, as Liam settled into Daniel’s. No one but themselves to see them dance this way, to care who or what they were. They were heroes, they were Free French, they were survivors.

Qadar. Simone couldn’t help but wonder if there was a preordained quality to what had happened. They’d found another world only to lock it back away; they’d grasped unfathomable power only long enough to rid themselves of it for good. If this was qadar, this river that flowed back to Evangeline, to all the possibility Simone once believed in before the world had battered her down, then she would gladly put her faith in this qadar and let it lead her as it liked.

The song faded from the radio set, and a BBC news bulletin started next. With a smile, Evangeline lowered Simone’s hand, kissed the very tip of her nose, and the six of them gazed into the stars once more.

“Evangeline . . .” Rebeka’s voice was soft and airy, nothing like the girl she’d been. This was the girl who’d slowly emerged in place of the old Rebeka over the past few weeks, heartiness enveloping whittled-down bones and brightness returning to her face. “Evangeline, I’m very sorry about your father.”

Evangeline tightened beside Simone, that reckless saint armoring herself for battle once more. Only Simone had ever seen the soft flesh in the gaps between those plates. “It’s what he deserved.”

Ripped out of Vichy by the Gestapo. Awaiting questioning in Paris. And then a handsome leather belt from a shop on the Champs-Élysées, a kicked-over chair, a stench rising from the forgotten cell.

“I can miss the man without losing sight of the monster he was,” Evangeline said, softer this time. “I can mourn his passing without being sorry that he’s gone.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Liam said. “To shitty fathers everywhere, and a world a little less shitty without them in it.”

“To having just one world to manage,” Daniel added as he wrestled the flask back from Liam for a sip.

Phillip raised his own flask. “Hear, hear.”

“To an after,” Rebeka said, and smiled up at the stars.