My knees felt weak as we walked back down the staircase, Klaus' sleeping face still burned behind my eyes. Relief warred with dread in my chest, wild, frantic, crashing like two storms colliding. My father's hand remained gently on my back as if I might fall.
"Es ist viel—it's a lot," he murmured. "I know, my child. I know."
He guided me toward the sitting room again, the one that looked like something from a storybook where nothing bad ever happened. Only this wasn't a storybook. This was a nightmare wearing silk gloves. I swallowed hard. My voice shook as I forced the words out. "Can your driver take Klaus and me back now, and we?—"
"Back?" His voice snapped like awhip.
I froze.
"This is your home," he said, soft but sharp. "Where you belong."
Something inside me shrank. Something else, a stubborn, terrified part, flared instead.
"To get our things," I explained quickly.
"What things could you possibly have?" he sneered, his lips curling. "Rags? Scraps? Trash from a bombed-out ruin? You don't need those old… burdens."
Old burdens. My breath stilled in my throat. I tried, "A bracelet. From Mutti. It's all we have left. And some toys for Klaus?—"
"I will get you new things," he said briskly. "Better things. Everything you could ever want."
"I want to go back," I insisted. My voice cracked like thin ice. "Tonight. Please. Just for our things."
His expression hardened. The warmth vanished like someone had blown out a candle.
"No," he said. "You're not going anywhere."
A cold shudder ran down my spine. "Vati, please?—"
"Komm," he interrupted, gently gripping my arm. "Du bist müde—you're tired. You need rest. We will talk tomorrow."
"No," I breathed, pulling my arm free. "I need to talk to Gideon."
That got his full attention.
"Gideon?" he repeated sharply.
"My fiancé," I said, standing straighter than I felt. "I need to let him know I'm safe."
His face twisted. "Fiancé?" he spat. "An American?" He said it like a curse. "Good God, Mädchen!" he thundered. "Do you have any idea how this will look? How people will talk? How the Party will see it? You will break up with him immediately."
"I will not!" My voice tore out of me, raw.
His eyes narrowed, sharp, calculating, predatory, draining all the blood from my face. He wasn't asking. This was an order.
"No American," he snapped, "will drag my daughter into disgrace."
Something inside me cracked. "Klaus!" I yelled, turning toward the stairs. "Klaus, wake up! Let's go home—Klaus?—"
My father didn't grab me. He didn't need to. Because as I stood in the doorway shouting for my brother, reality hit with a force that knocked the air from my lungs. We weren't leaving this place. Not if he didn't want us to. I had no money. No papers. No identity in the East. No right to cross a border guarded by armed men. The villa was a gilded cage. My knees gave out. I pressed a hand to the wall to keep from collapsing to the floor.
Gideon.
Oh God—Gideon.
Would I ever see him again?
My heart splintered, piece by piece, the way buildings had split during the firestorms. I clutched my mother's memory to my chest like a shield and whispered, voice broken, "Gideon, what have I done?"
