Instead, I passed the days by visiting Sadie, bringing her what little I could. I still had not told her the truth about her mother. It was the right decision, I tried to reassure myself more than once over my own doubts. It was growing harder to find hope in Sadie’s eyes as her time in the sewer without her family dragged on. I couldn’t make it worse with more bad news.

I changed into my nightgown and climbed in bed, trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Sometime later, I heard Ana Lucia and her new companion come in and traipse up the stairs to her room. Colonel Maust was gone, transferred to Munich for reasons I did not know. I had wondered if without him Ana Lucia might lose the favored status she enjoyed with the General Government. But she quickly replaced him with an even higher-ranking German, whose name I had not bothered to learn. A gruff, silent officer, he made no effort at pleasantries, stomping into the house late at night and leaving just the same before dawn instead. Hanna had whispered once that he had a wife and children back in Berlin. He was an awful sort, seeming to shout rather than talk to my stepmother. The sounds that came from her bedroom these days bordered on violent and I often wondered if I needed to go downstairs and intervene to help her.

A few days earlier at breakfast I had noticed a bruise under her eye. “You know you don’t have to be with him, or to let him do that,” I offered. Even though she was awful to me, I could not help but feel sorry for her. “We would be fine without a German to protect us.”

Embarrassment flashed across her face. “Who are you to advise me on my personal affairs?” she flared, covering it quickly with anger. I did not push the point further.

Finally, I blocked out the noises from Ana Lucia’s room below and settled down. Suddenly, a sharp rapping sound jarred me awake. I rubbed my eyes as the sound came again. A stone, then another, hit my window. I sat up. Once upon a time, Krys used to signal me that way, our covert sign that I should come down for a secret rendezvous. I smoothed my hair, wondering how long he had been back from his errand. Had Kara given him my note, or had he simply decided to come see me on his own? It seemed rather presumptuous, given our last quarrel and the time that had passed, that he would expect me to meet him now. I walked to the window.

To my surprise, standing on the street below was not Krys, but Kara.

“What is it?” I asked, equal parts disappointed and curious and annoyed. Krys had obviously told her where I lived. Why hadn’t he come himself?

Kara did not answer, but gestured for me to come down to the street. I dressed and started downstairs quickly, careful not to make noise. I worried that Ana Lucia and her companion might have heard the stones hitting my window. But they snored, sleeping deeply from too much wine. I slipped outside. “Come,” she said, starting to walk as soon as I closed the door behind me.