I want so much to believe Lenora misheard. Yet she’s fiercely convinced she didn’t, and the potential risks from discounting her claims are a thousand times greater than accepting them as truth.

On our return bus ride, having skipped out on the picture show, I’m festering with anger—at Bogart and Crockatt and whoever else chose to twist my role so deceitfully. Repulsively. Was this the only reason they’d accepted my proposal? At the very least, I deserve an explanation of what firmed their misguided conclusion.

But I can’t worry about that now. I have to stay clearheaded enough to make my own plan. Because whatever they think Arie’s done, based on the details they shared or more, he needs a chance to present the truth. The pure truth, not filtered and distorted through another’s mouth out of ignorance or idiocy. Or malice.

“What will you do?” Lenora is finally able to ask once we disembark in Beaconsfield, no longer hindered by the presence of passengers. In the bus’s wake, petrol fumes pervade the afternoon air as I scrounge for an answer.

“Quite honestly? I haven’t a clue yet.”

She’s quick to reply. “You’ll figure something out. You will.”

While I’ve sworn to keep her disclosure in confidence, the possibility that she’s jeopardized her career isn’t lost on me.

“Thank you, Lenora. For telling me.”

She offers a heartfelt look. “Godspeed, Fenna.”

As we go our separate ways, I think back to my old standby lesson—how I need only belief, imagination, and perseverance to solve any given problem.

Now more than ever, I hope that holds true.

Chapter 48

The place was designed by an illusionist.

That’s according to the serviceman who chauffeured me here, and a tenable theory. Shielded by trees, north of London—Tempsford, I gather—the moonlit airfield with its crisscrossing runways masquerades as an expansive farm. Fleets of aircraft are tucked away somewhere in the darkness. Clusters of remarkably disguised buildings give no indication of the equipment and munitions surely stocked to the rafters. The farmhouse too is well utilized, hosting preflight receptions, like the one I completed upon arriving.

On a sofa chair in the sitting room a smidge past ten, I now wait alone. Beyond the blacked-out window, a buzzing noise grows. I envision a Lysander charging along a runway and up, up into the blackened sky.

Just as my own plane shortly will be…