And then there it was—squat, yellow, and impervious. On this day, Marianne felt only pleasure at the castle’s intransigence. It was like a steady friend. She quickened her pace. Here was the old linden. Here was her favorite patch of stone wall. Here was the footbridge, and the grand opening, like a wide dark mouth. She tracked around the side to the smaller bridge that led to the kitchen and stopped short.

There were voices coming from within. Marianne could not make them out clearly, but one belonged to a woman. Arguing. She froze and listened. It was Ania.

Marianne’s heart gave a contradictory flutter—relief that it was her friend and not some intruder and dismay at the awkwardness of having arrived in the middle of a dispute. Who was Ania arguing with? She had never heard the woman so much as raise her voice. Her tone was tense. Possibly she had come to check on the castle and been accosted by some dangerous vagrant holed up within its walls. They should have locked it up more thoroughly!

Marianne stooped to grab a large stone and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. She threw it open, her heart racing.

But the scene in front of her did not appear violent.

At the table, a man sat before a bowl of soup. He was gaunt and hollow eyed and obviously sick. Ania stood across the room, leaning against the old dry sink. A series of emotions crossed her friend’s face. Shock, dismay, and then something like resignation.

Marianne stood, still holding the stone, and gaped.

“I’m sorry—” she began. “I didn’t know—”

The man looked from her to Ania and back again. With a frail hand, he pushed away the soup. “This is your castle,” he said to Marianne.

The words sounded strange. Burg Lingenfels was not really hers.

He was a land surveyor, maybe, a tax auditor, a salesman of some sort? Her mind leapt toward possible explanations.

Still Ania did not speak.

“And Ania has not told you about me,” he said, dashing the possibilities.

Marianne looked at her friend, whose face was now turned to the floor. Milk spread in two dark stains from her breasts.

Marianne felt an overwhelming need to sit. From outside she could hear the swallows. Inside, the room was dark and close as a crypt.

“I was going to,” Ania said, finally lifting her eyes. “You must believe this.”

Marianne stared at her.

The face that stared back was unfamiliar—sagging with despair and a chilling sense of calm.

“This is my husband,” Ania said.

When Marianne left the castle, the day outside was shockingly unchanged. The afternoon sun lay thick across the stubbled fields, the poppies bloomed . . . But she didn’t see this. Her mind circled and darted like a bird whose nest has been destroyed.

Her own actions in the castle were a jumble in her mind.

He can’t stay here, Marianne had said, coldly regarding the man Ania had just referred to as her husband. Ania had bowed her head.