“I’ll see what I can do to get more,” Ella replied quickly.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. You’ve given me so much and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. But there are five of us in the sewer. We need to find a larger store of food to hold us over until...” I faltered, not sure what we were holding on for: Pawel to come back to us? The war to end? Neither seemed terribly likely at the moment. “Until things change,” I finished weakly.

“I don’t have anything,” she said. “If you can give me a few days, I’ll try some of the markets outside the city.”

In my mind I saw Mama, who had been so weak with hunger that she had nearly fainted earlier. “I’m sorry, but that won’t be soon enough,” I said bluntly. “That is, I really appreciate all that you have done, but if we wait longer to find food, it might be too late. We’re out of time.”

“What is it that you want me to do?”

“I know of some food left in the ghetto. I need to get to it.”

“If you tell me where, I’ll go look,” she said without hesitation. Despite the danger of what I was proposing, she was willing to try.

“I can’t just tell you. It will be hard to find and dangerous for you to go on your own.” I took a deep breath, bracing for the audacity of what I was about to say. “I need to find it myself and I need your help getting out of here so I can do it.”

“When?”

I swallowed. “Now.”

She paused. “When we first met, you said it was too dangerous for you to be on the street.”

“It is. Still, we need food and if there is a chance that I can get it, I must try. There’s no other choice.” The risk of being arrested was real. But the threat of starvation felt so much worse right now. “Please, help me get out and do this.”

I expected her to say no. But she nodded solemnly, willing to do what I asked. A second later, she began tugging at the sewer grate. It stuck, seemingly rusted shut. My heart sank. I would not be able to get out this way. I began pushing as she pulled. At last, the grate released. Ella lifted it with effort and heaved it back. Then she reached for me, her hand floundering in the dark space between us. Our fingers locked, touching for the first time, and she tugged on me with more strength than I would have thought she possessed. I unfolded myself and straightened, freed from my hiding spot.

Just like that, I was out of the sewer.

I inhaled deeply, drinking in the air in great gulps and it was so fresh and cold it burned my lungs on the way down. We were standing on a gentle slope of grass that led down to the embankment by the river. My eyes traveled immediately to the night sky, a carpet of stars above Wawel Cathedral. It was the first time in months that I had seen the view I had shared dozens of times with my father as a child on our walks, which let us see so much more than we could from the narrow windows of our apartment. Once I had taken for granted that the stars would always be there. Then they had been stolen from me, as surely as Papa had. I looked up now, drinking in the magical view, even more brilliant than I had remembered.