But it was her hands that made me stop in the doorway.
Müller had re-wrapped them in clean white bandages, but I could see the shape of them. Or rather, I saw the shape they were supposed to be but weren’t. Her fingers were wrong, too short, too flat. The bandages couldn’t fully hide what had been done to her.
“William.” Her voice was softer than I expected, almost gentle. “Stop hovering in the doorway like a frightened child. Come and sit with me.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me—really looked—as if seeing me for the first time.
“You came for me,” she said finally. “You and Thomas. You came into that place, knowing what waited for you, knowing you might not come out alive.”
“Of course we did.”
“There is no ‘of course’ about it.” She shook her head slowly. “I have spent my entire life surrounded by people who would betray me for the right price, who would sell my secrets, my safety, even my life, if the offer was sufficient.” Her voice cracked. “And then there is you. You and Thomas. Running into a fortress full of armed men because I needed—” Her words choked off.
I swallowed hard. “You’ve done the same for us. In Rome and Vienna.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached across the table—slowly, painfully, her bandaged hands trembling with the effort—and rested her fingers on top of mine.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I do not say those words often. Perhaps I do not say them enough.” Her eye glistened. “But thank you, William, for coming, for not giving up. For—”
She stopped. Her face contorted, and for a terrible moment, and I thought she might scream. Instead, she made a sound that was worse—a small, choked sob, the kind that comes from someone who has forgotten how to cry and is remembering all at once.
“They hurt me, William.” Her voice was that of a child now, small and broken. “They asked me questions, and when I would not answer, they . . .” She looked down at her ruined hands. “They took my fingernails first. One by one. They said they would take the fingers next if I did not cooperate.”
I didn’t move, didn’t speak. I just sat there, letting her hold my hand, letting her say the things she needed to say.
“I did not break.” Her voice steadied slightly, though the tears were still falling. “I want you to know that. Whatever they did, however much it hurt, I did not tell them what they wanted to know. I did not betray my people. I did not betray you.”
“I know,” I said. “I never doubted it.”
“But I came close.” The admission seemed to cost her something. “There were moments—in the dark, when the pain was worst—when I thought about giving them what they wanted just to make it stop, just to make them—” She broke off, her breath hitching. “I am not as strong as people think I am, William. I am not the woman they believe me to be.”
“No, you’re stronger,” I said. “You’re sitting here, alive, after everything they did to you. That’s not weakness.”
She looked at me with a vulnerability I had never seen in the indomitable woman. It was raw, unguarded vulnerability, the kind she had spent her entire life learning to hide.
“You are a good man,” she said softly. “You and Thomas both. Whatever happens—whatever comes next—I want you to know that I see you, and not merely as operatives or assets or tools. I see you as men . . . as friends.” She squeezed my hand, and I felt her trembling. “As family.”
The words hung in the air between us.
Family.
I had never heard the Baroness use that word before.
“Baroness—”
“Isabella, please.”
I blinked, stunned.
“Isabella,” I said, the name feeling more foreign than any tongue. “You need rest. The doctor can give you something for the pain, but your body needs sleep.”
“I cannot sleep.” But her voice was weaker now, the fight draining out of her. “When I close my eyes, I am back in that cell. I feel their hands on me. I hear their questions.I—”
She tipped forward and fell into my arms. Her sobs shook my chest.
