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No one moves. Andrée feels Cat’s hand find hers beneath the table.

Agent tells them what he knows, which isn’t much. Whether he said anything before the end—whether their names were spoken in that courtyard or in the rooms before it—he does not know. They may never know.

The meeting is sombre. A rare visit from Doctor René, plus Agent, Dancer, Cat, Louis, Tina, Andrée. Seven people who used to be eight. How many more will they lose?

“We keep going,” Agent says, his voice hollow. “That’s all we can do. We keep going.”

They file out in ones and twos, as always. Andrée sees them to the door, one after another, each leaving with a quiet word or none at all. Cat is last. He waits in the hallway while she closes the door behind the others, and when she turns back he’s standing there with his coat half on, watching her. That expression on his face again: unguarded, stripped of the easy charm he wears like a second skin.

“I don’t know what I’d do,” he says quietly, “if something happened to you. I genuinely don’t know.”

Andrée looks at him for a long moment. There are a hundred things she could say. Instead, she reaches up and touches his face briefly, just for a moment.

He covers her hand with his before she can lower it.

They stand like that in the dim hallway, just the two of them, the cold pressing in at the edges of the door.

“Go home safely,” she says softly. “That’s what you can do.”

He nods, buttons his coat and slips out into the night.

Andrée closes the door and leans against it for a moment in the silence.

It’s getting harder to believe. Harder to hope. Harder to remember why they’re fighting. The Allies seem no closer, and liberation feels impossible. They are simply enduring the brutality of occupation.

At home, Josie practices piano less. She is too weak, too cold, too hungry. Her fingers stumble and her concentration is minimal. Andrée doesn’t push her. What’s the point? Survival is more important than “Clair de Lune.” Survival is more important than Chopin. Survival is all that matters now.

Chapter Twenty-Two

When spring arrives, it brings no warmth. Paris remains cold and gray and starving. The flowers bloom in the parks, tended by no one, enjoyed by no one. This abundant beauty feels obscene when people are so hungry.

The mysterious cell continues to meet, and Louis can’t help but wonder how they still have the strength. What are they planning that’s so important it’s worth using precious energy, precious calories, on meetings?

One Tuesday, after they leave, he finds another note. Liberation is coming. Hold on.

He shows it to Tina. She reads it, laughs bitterly. “Liberation. From where? The Allies are still stuck in Italy. The Russians are hundreds of miles away. Who’s coming to liberate us?”

“Maybe they know something we don’t.”

“Maybe they’re just as desperate as we are. Clinging to hope because the alternative would mean giving up.”

The following Tuesday, as the strangers arrive for their meeting, the man who first visited the Levallois apartment, the unnamed leader of the other cell, pulls Louis aside in the hallway.

“Monsieur, Colonel Pallas has asked if you would join us today. We need to discuss a critical mission. Your expertise is required.”

Louis’s pulse quickens. A mission. After all these months of hiding strangers, of providing a safe place, of not knowing, and now, finally, action.

“Of course. I’ll join you.”

He follows the man into his own bedroom. The door closes. And for the first time, Louis learns what they’ve been planning. What they need from him. Where he needs to go.

Normandy.

Tina and Andrée have been pacing the living room, exchanging glances, desperate to know why Louis attended the meeting. “Later,” was Louis’s only response each time they pressed him. Now Josie is asleep, they gather around the table in hushed tones, the lamp turned low.

“Colonel Pallas gave the order, specifically for me. I must go.”

“Louis, how much can you tell us? Why Normandy? Where in Normandy do they want you to go?” Tina’s voice is tight with fear.