It was a difficult statement to dispute. Ettie was tricky that way. She knew how to answer a question with a question. Still, Lea knew something was amiss. When the train began to move, she took hold of her suitcase. She should not be here. She should be with her mother. They’d held hands, they’d run with blood on their shoes, they’d slept in the same bed when there were thunderstorms, they’d celebrated Passover with a single apple and no matzoh, reading from a Haggadah, though to own such a book was a crime. Everything was a crime in their world, but she must return to where she belonged. If her mother and Bobeshi were arrested, she would go with them. She could save them; she knew that she could if only she had the chance. The train was still going slowly. It had to be now. Lea could leap onto the platform and then find her way home. She stood up, suitcase in hand, but the train was moving faster than she’d initially thought, and she stumbled. Ava reached out to stop her fall.

“We must do as we’re told,” Ava reminded her. “We will honor your mother and follow her instructions.”

“Because she is your maker?” Lea asked, her heart breaking.

Ava shook her head. “Because she is yours.”

Once they had left the outskirts of the city, Ava gazed out the window. She could see the world beyond men’s eyes. There were angels in the canopy of the trees that lined the train tracks. Melahel, angel of safe travel and healing. Haiel, angel of courage. Ornael, the angel of patience who guards against sorrow. Each time someone was born, three angels were sent to watch over her for a lifetime, and these angels were Lea’s. Seventy-two angels guided humanity, but men and women couldn’t see them and, on those rare occasions when the angels spoke, they couldn’t hear. But Ava observed their world as easily as she did the world of human beings. She spied Azriel, the angel that could be seen by human eyes in the final instants of a life. He was following the train, for his work was never done. He came to peer in their window, and Ava held Lea’s hand. She wasn’t about to let him come anywhere near Hanni’s daughter.

Lea pulled away. “I won’t run,” she said.