“That it is a miracle,” he said. “I dreamed so often of being on this hillside again with you.” He turned to her, reached up, and stroked her cheek. “I did not believe that God would answer me—how could he hear me among all the other noise, all those poor souls begging for mercy?” He closed his eyes briefly, refocused them on the sky.
“Perhaps it was me he heard,” Katerina said. “Because I was asking for the same miracle.”
Stefanos shifted onto his side, drawing her close against him.
“You are my miracle,” he murmured. “The only brightness in this black world. You belong up there with the stars.”
Katerina tightened her hold on him.
“I belong down here with you.”
She hoped he would kiss her, but instead, he let out a soft, broken sigh.
“How soon will you go?” she asked, for she knew he would. She felt the truth in the way he held her, in the urgent pressure of his fingers against her skin.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “If we wait any longer, it may become impossible. You know that if they find me here, they will kill me?”
“ ‘We’?” She blinked, daring to hope, to envisage a future without separation.
“I must take Michalis with me,” he said. “He has become…It would not be safe to leave him. Some of the other men from the village will also accompany us—Constantine, Giorgos.”
“The brothers?” she asked. “Atlas and Zephyr? Surely they will also go?”
“No.” His gaze remained set on hers. “That is what they want, of course, but I convinced them to stay here. We need someone to lead the Resistance, to protect the people and fight if necessary. However, they cannot remain in the village. Will you take them to the place you have found, show them where to hide?”
“Of course,” she said. “Anything. But I don’t understand why it has to be them—why not you?”
Stefanos rested his forehead against hers. He was near enough that she could feel the soft brush of his eyelashes on her cheeks.
“I am not from this island,” he murmured. “The men, they will not follow me.”
“The brothers are not from here, either,” she said, heat creeping into her voice. “They are exiles, not even relations of anyone on Folegandros.”
“But they are respected, yes? They are liked?”
Katerina blew out a sharp breath through her nose.
“You are liked,” she insisted, and he smiled.
“Only by you,katsikáki. And I fear that you and I alone cannot beat an army.”
“I want to come with you,” she said, though even to her, the statement sounded hollow, despondent. Stefanos pressed his lips to hers and kissed her once, very gently.
“I spoke to the priest tonight,” he said. “In the church, when everybody else had gone.”
“About Esther?” she guessed.
“Not about her. I think it is best to keep that truth as close to the family as we can. War can turn even the oldest of friends into enemies, and you will discover that many will do whatever they must in order to survive, even if that means condemning another.”
“Then what were you talking about?” she persisted. “Were you asking for absolution?”
A flicker of sorrow crossed his face, there and gone.
“I was asking for something more important than that,” he said, his fingers once again digging deep into her flesh. “A blessing.”
“For what?”
“For us,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, as if he’d told her once before and she had forgotten it.
