“You cannot debate or make up your own mind. You must do what I’ve written. Do you understand me?”

Lea didn’t understand the way the soldier had touched her, or the demons in the trees, or why the dark-haired woman sat at their table. She didn’t understand why her mother would give her such a beautiful gift when Lea had caused Hanni to become a murderess. There was still blood on their shoes. Their visitor had taken it upon herself to clean them, wiping the leather with warm water, then using a stiff wire brush to get rid of the last of the stains.

“My dearest,” Hanni said. Mein Kind, mein Schatz. Heart of my heart, love of my life, the one loss I will never survive. “Make me this single promise and I will never ask you for anything else.”

“Yes,” Lea said. She had decided not to cry, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t broken inside. “I will do as you say.”

To say goodbye is a terrible thing, made even worse when you don’t know why you are being sent away.

“We can’t give up,” Bobeshi whispered as she hugged Lea. “We have to save the next generation so that one day you can rescue people, as your father did. We love you more than we love our own lives.”

Their embrace lasted a long time, long enough for Bobeshi to tell Lea the story of the last wolf in her village. It was the middle of winter, when the whole world was white, and a wolf and her cub had been chased as far as they could go. There was no escape, at least not for both. When the mother wolf ran to attack the hunters, all they saw were her claws and her fangs. While they shot her, the cub disappeared into the snow. That was the moment when its coat turned from black to white so that it was forever after invisible to hunters.

“That is the way a mother triumphs,” Bobeshi said. “All you have to do to is survive and your mother lives through you.”

Lea kissed her mother, nothing more. She did none of the things she wanted to do. She did not lock herself in the closet or throw the suitcase across the room.

“I will always love you,” her mother told her. “Wherever you are.”

Lea knew this was true, but Bobeshi had told her a harder truth. The wolf turned white in the snow. It managed to live, but it went on alone.

She was in the hallway with the stranger, her suitcase in hand. It was difficult to take a breath because something inside her chest was burning, but she went down the stairs and she didn’t look back.