Marcel’s limbs were too pained, too numb to even flinch. Instead, he stared at the hand. Remembered another, smaller one, falling to a table. Remembered the fire in Blaise’s eyes.Protect her,he’d said. The only command that mattered a whit at this point.
“Youvanish. Into the bush, I wanted to think. Because eventhatwould be better than what I didn’t want to admit. But you’re not that kind of fighter, are you, Marcel?” He stood suddenly, pushing his chair back with a screech, and braced himself on thetable. “You couldn’t havestartedthe organization, you were still in Germany when it began. But your brothers served together, didn’t they? Raoul and Antoine. Two daredevil fighter pilots. Is that how you met, when you returned to France?”
It could have been. Hadn’t he thought it so many times? There were countless ways their lives could have intersected.Wouldhave, he liked to think. They always would have met. Always would have realized how much they had in common.
Always would have fallen in love.
“She was already working for Jean Loustaunau-Lacau. Did she bring you in? Introduce you?” A scoff of a laugh. “And he’d have seen whatweso quickly saw—that you are not just a musician, no matter what you claim. You’re a leader. The sort of man who can organize other men, to whom they readily answer.”
Marcel drew a measured breath in, let it out, to the count of eight. It wasn’t Lothar anymore, watching him—not the Lothar he’d come to know, full of laughter and a shared love of music. It was SS-Sturmbannführer Von Eberstein—a man who had left behind the family he loved to don that black-marked uniform, the uniform Marcel hadknownto fear but had somehow become blind to over the months.
He’d been a fool to ever forget, for even a moment, that they were on opposite sides of this war. That though there were plenty of everyday soldiers who were justmen, this one had chosen a different path. A very particular path, if he was SS. He wasn’t just a music lover—he was a true believer in the Nazi cause.
Marcel tilted his head to the side, finally loosing his tongue. But not to answer a question. To ask one. “What is it, exactly, thatyoudo, Lothar? In and out of Free France? In Paris, in Marseille, popping up wherever you please?”
“There is no moreFree France.” A flash of something in his eyes, something that sizzled like lightning. A small, cruel smile that made a mockery of all the genuine ones he’d given him. Orperhapsthiswas the real one. Perhaps the others had all been but playacting. Perhaps that discomfort Marcel could never quite shake hadn’t just been because of the simple truth of having a Nazi overseer but had been because something inside him, some tuning fork had picked up on the frequency of cruelty now laid bare in Von Eberstein’s eyes. “What do you think? I have been hunting spies, Resistance members. And now I’ll run this prison and direct the interrogations of those vermin.”
Marcel’s stomach dropped. At least he’d never fully trusted him—he had that comfort. He’d never let down his guard, never let anything about Alliance slip.
Lord, strengthen me now. Please, Father, keep me from endangering anyone else. Help me to save them.
Von Eberstein circled the stark metal desk and leaned against it. “What is your call sign, Laurent? Our source described you perfectly but somehow,somehowdidn’t know what you answered to. Are you Bull? Fox? Chamois? Beaver?”
Marcel stared at the cap on the table. Blanchet, he was the source. But praise God, Marcel had never even identified himself to him.
“Plover? Ibex? Greenfinch? Wolf?”
He kept on staring, careful not to so much as flinch as Von Eberstein rattled off his name.
“What about the Bellerose woman? Who isshein all of this?”
Of course they knew her name—and since Blanchet had already known her by that, she’d never bothered signing things to him with her call sign. Another connection not made for the Nazis.Thanks be to God.Was she here in this fortress with him? Wherever she was, he prayed they were treating her better than they were him. Prayed that God would protect her. Prayed he would help Marcel to do the same, in any way he could.
Von Eberstein lunged forward, jabbing a hand into Marcel’s throat with force enough to make his chair come up on its backtwo legs. Then held there, under his chin, restricting his airflow. “Do you think you will get away with this? Making a fool of me? You think I won’t do absolutelyeverythingto rip this organization apart, after you paraded right under my nose all this time? You could have chosen to be myfriend, Marcel. But if you want me for an enemy instead—then so be it.”
Marcel’s eyes bulged from the grip on his throat, and when Von Eberstein let go as suddenly as he’d grabbed him, he coughed, wincing as the sudden drop of the chair legs jostled his battered ribs.
Von Eberstein leaned against the table again. “Let’s try this a different way. Tell me your call sign or I kill Bellerose. I bet she was quite... entertaining to you, wasn’t she? Is that why you kept her around after you inherited the reins?”
After...heinherited the reins? Marcel coughed one more time and focused on the mistaken information instead of the insult to Zelie and his own intentions.
Use it.The words curled through the melody playing in the back of his mind.Use it to protect her.
He lifted his chin again. “Leave her out of this.”
Von Eberstein’s eyes narrowed. “I think I won’t. I think I’ll have my men payhera little visit and leave the doors open so you can listen to her scream.”
She was here then—nearby. He strained against his bonds. “I said leave heralone.”Desperate, he had to convince him he was desperate. It wasn’t hard to do, even as hope sparked.
If this worked, this plan spiraling into place like harmonies in counterpoint, they’d probably kill him.
But they might let her live. Might let hergo.
Von Eberstein straightened, rounded the table, opened the door.
“No. No! Leave her out of it!” Marcel screamed.
The door closed again. Fingers curled into his hair, gripping the roots, and used it to force his head back, so that he was lookingupside down at the man who’d once called himself a friend. “Give me your call sign, Laurent.”
