“Why do you have this?” Simone hissed. She’d caught herself reaching for it, but had drawn back at the last moment, as if it might burn her.

“We use it as a codebook.” Guillerme left Phillip to his work and joined her at the side table. His fingers traced a set of underlined words. “Different phrases to decrypt messages in the network. Something the Magpie set up.”

Her fingers traced over one of the underlined passages for encoding. One has to do something about fear once one has it. Evangeline had hugged the book to her chest after reading that line, and Simone swallowed, recalling how tiny she’d looked—how tiny they’d both felt. They’d been the shape of loneliness and loss, of a simple truth that should have torn them apart so long ago. But Simone had wanted to believe. She wanted to believe they could someday overcome it.

She should have known, like a split in otherwise beautiful wood: no amount of sanding could smooth that fracture away.

“Do you . . .” Her voice came out all dried and cracked. She swallowed and tried again. “Do you have any of the Magpie’s messages?”

“I keep his transmissions over here.” Guillerme rolled his chair toward a stack of torn-off notebook papers weighted down under a coffee mug. “In case we come across any of the things he’s requested.”

Simone scanned through the unscrambled notes. Most of it was garbage to her—the message date and time, the sender’s identification code, and the numbers signifying the length of the message to follow. Her eyes skidded over these clusters toward the meat of each message.

Request guest list for upcoming Wewelsburg conference 15 09 42.

Request update on munitions distribution to OZ.

Request last known location for Haupsturmführer Kreutzer.

And then, from just that morning: Request details of Siegen attack.

“The information he sends out—it has a lot to do with the Vichy government’s distribution of munitions, food. I imagine someone in the network is able to use that to steal supplies.” Guillerme smiled. “Whoever he is, he’s pretty helpful. But it’s always the helpful ones who get caught first.” His smile faded. “He’s only been active for a few months. Let’s hope he knows what he’s doing.”

“The Vichy government?” Simone started, then stopped herself.

Evangeline.

Stop imagining things. The Magpie could be anyone. Simone bit down on the inside of her cheek without any Gauloises to huff. “Are you going to answer this request about Siegen?”

“I thought I might, as soon as your friend is finished with his work. Why do you ask?” Guillerme twirled his pencil between his fingers as he said it. Too casually. Simone couldn’t blame him for getting suspicious. She was being too naked in her hope. Her absurd, desperate belief that somehow Evangeline was not the callous coward Simone had branded her after all.