Tomorrow morning, a military plane would take Liam and Phillip home to America, and Rebeka and Daniel with them, sanctuary granted by Uncle Sam. Phillip couldn’t stop talking about the business he wanted to start, with the help of his friends from school: building digital machines like his frequency folder, at least, after he’d overseen the creation of a handful for the US Army’s use. Rebeka seemed all too happy to help him. Liam talked, hesitantly, about returning to Princeton to finish his master’s work, and Daniel had mumbled something about music—that he longed to play again.

“I wish we could go home, too,” Simone said, shrinking down against the roof. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d wanted it until she said it out loud. “I miss the way Paris was before.” Not all of it, of course—but enough that she could call it home.

Evangeline brought their joined hands up to her mouth and placed a gentle kiss on Simone’s knuckles. Then her fingertips, each in turn. “The tide is turning. The Russians are putting up a fierce fight on the Eastern front, too. When this war’s over, there’ll be plenty of work there for you.”

Simone turned toward her and savored the way her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Is that so?”

“The Germans are terrible guests.”

Simone cast her gaze down. “I’m not sure anyone will give me the chance.”

“The crack shot of Libération-Nord, one of the Wewelsburg Five? I think you might be surprised.” Evangeline arched one golden eyebrow. “And if not, I’m sure I can demand it of de Gaulle.”

Simone snorted and leaned closer to her. “That sounds terrifying.”

“I’m good at terrifying.”

“I know. I love seeing it.”

Simone caught her face in her hands and drew her in for another kiss. She wondered if Evangeline could taste the darkness on her, the forest and the demons and the blood and gunpowder. It had suited her at the time. Her time spent on the trail, the rifle in her hand. She almost hated to be dragged back into this mundane world she’d left behind.

But there was plenty else that suited her as well.

She kissed Evangeline, her honey and sunlight girl, and the world and its dark shadows fell away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

LIAM

Liam pulled two chairs up in front of his mother and sat down with his hands clenched tight.

“Hi, Ma.” With a weak smile, he gestured toward his eye patch. “Look, we match.”

A gray eye stared back at him. At least today it tried to focus on his face. He wondered what she saw when she looked at the eye patch, at the scar that stretched from either side of it, the split skin filled with a blackness like volcano glass. That he’d suffered, the same as she had? Or that, like her, he’d also survived?