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They tell Josie. Not the specifics, she doesn’t need to know about sabotage and railways, about the violence that’s coming. But they tell her that they believe liberation is close. They trust her not to tell anyone else—no one at all.

“How soon?” she asks, her voice small, hopeful.

“Soon. Just weeks away.”

For the first time in months, Josie smiles. Not the polite smile she saves for school. Not the careful smile she uses with strangers. Instead, she beams, joy breaking through despair.

It’s a month of rain. Cold, relentless rain that soaks through their clothes to their skin. The apartment develops leaks. Tina puts out pots to catch the drips. The sound of water hitting metal becomes the soundtrack of their lives. Drip. Drip. Drip. Doctor René brings medicine when he can. Aspirin for Tina’s headaches. Vitamins for Josie. But medicine can’t treat hunger. Medicine can’t cure cold or anguish.

Josie turns to the piano less and less. It’s a cold spring, and the apartment is freezing. The music feels hollow, pointless. What good is Beethoven when you’re starving? What good is beauty when you’re dying? But one night, she plays anyway. Not Beethoven. Not Chopin. It takes Andrée a few notes to recognize “Ma’oz Tzur,” the Hanukkah song her father taught her. She plays it repeatedly, adding chords, the melody filling the apartment with defiance, with resistance, with the refusal to surrender.

“Why that song?” Andrée asks.

“Because it’s about fighting back. About not giving up. About miracles when everything seems hopeless.” Josie’s hands don’t stop moving. “We need a miracle, Tata Andrée. We need the oil to last eight days. We need something to change.”

“Maybe it will. Maybe it already is, and we just don’t know it yet.”

Spring is slow to arrive. But with the news of possible liberation, hope feels almost like warmer weather, or like a candle in the darkness. A small, flickering, fragile glow, but burning nonetheless.

The network redoubles its efforts. More acts of sabotage take place and more missions are allocated. All of Paris is preparing for what comes next. The Resistance has waited four years for this moment. They won’t waste it.

Dancer transmits constantly now. Hour after hour, her fingers tapping code, sending intelligence to London about troop movements, supply lines, defensive positions. Sending anything that might help to end the war.

The knock at the door is unexpected. Andrée opens it to find Cat standing in the hallway, hat in hand, wearing the expression of a man who has just made a decision he hasn’t entirely thought through.

“Come for a walk with me,” he says.

Andrée looks at him. “A walk?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

“If you’re not busy.”

She gets her coat.

They meander through the neighborhood, falling into step the way people do when they have walked together before and intend to again. The streets are quiet in the thin afternoon light. After a while, Andrée glances at him sideways.

“So,” she says, “why did you come?”

“I was passing.”

“You were not passing. I live nowhere near any place you might be passing.”

“I wanted some air.”

“Cat . . .”

He is quiet for a moment. Then, almost reluctantly, as though the admission costs him something: “I just wanted to. That’s all. I wanted to see you.”

Andrée says nothing. But her expression softens, and she doesn’t ask again.

They find their way to the park without discussing where they’re going and walk the path beneath the trees. The first spring leaves have arrived. Flowers push through the soft earth seeking the sun. It is crisp but not unbearably cold. Around them other people move through the afternoon—an old man with his dog, two women with a pram, a boy on a bicycle. Just a city going about its quiet business.

Their hands brush as they walk. It happens again, and this time their fingers catch briefly before letting go. A faint smile from Cat, eyes forward. An equally faint smile from Andrée, also looking straight ahead. Nothing is said. Nothing needs to be.

They are on the far side of the park when they hear it—the end of the school day and the shouts of children spilling out through the gates, followed by rapid footsteps on the path behind them.