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Although Emmie did wonder whether it was really because Kate had been working hardest or more because Mrs. Barrett desperately wanted to be left to get on with it in her own way and not have Kate just looking at her every time she suggested something new.

“And you know that Florence can’t get away because of the planting but she desperately needs someone to get her more chickens. You will get Florence her chickens, won’t you?” Nothing made Kate feel better than a bit of responsibility.

“Yes, she’s given me very specific instructions. No roosters this time.” Kate looked horror-struck. “I didn’t mean—”

Emmie felt the familiar lump form at the back of her throat. This kept happening. Everything would be normal and then suddenly they’d hit on that sore spot again, like biting down on a rotten tooth. “I know you didn’t. It’s all right.”

“But it’s not, is it? I never should have said what I said to you. I was angry about your paying my way—my pride was hurt. But that was no excuse for lashing out at you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Emmie’s head hurt thinking about it. Kate had been on her about it ever since she’d mentioned the prospect of leaving. For once, it was Kate who wanted to talk, and Emmie who wanted to be left alone.

“But it does.” Kate glowered at the new house, where Mrs. Barrett lived and worked. “I hate that she’s making me go just now—”

“You’d hate it a week or a month from now too,” said Emmie, propelling Kate down the path. “If you’re going, you’d best go. What was it that Lady Macbeth said? If it were done, it were best done quickly? Not that you’re planning to commit regicide or anything like that, but I imagine the same principle applies. Look, there’s Julia in the machine already. You’d best get it over with so you can come back sooner.”

Kate gave her a quick, fierce hug, a gesture that so surprised Emmie that she completely failed to hug her back.

“You won’t make any decisions while I’m away?”

“I won’t,” promised Emmie. “I promise I won’t say anything to Mrs. Barrett until you come back from Paris. Other than the usual sorts of things like hello and good morning and please pass the toast.”

Julia gave her a brief, ironic wave, and they were off, bumping along in the Red Cross truck with Dave, while Marie came out of her cottage to watch and comment acerbically that it would be a wonder if That Man didn’t kill her young ladies.

Emmie watched them go, wondering how two people who meant so well could hurt each other so badly, and how one could get past the tangle of who’d done what and who’d been right and who’d been wrong and whether it mattered anyway.

Because no matter what Kate said now, it didn’t change the fact that Emmie had walked them into an impossible situation that night in the snow.

Or that she’d brought Kate into the Unit under false pretenses.

She’d promised Kate she wouldn’t go until the new people came, and that was something of a relief, at least, because it meant she wouldn’t have to think about it until then. But she did think about it anyway. She thought about all she’d meant to do and all she hadn’t. Or all she’d done but done wrong.

When Emmie had joined the Unit, she’d had such grand ideas of bringing people together, of doing something wonderful and heroic. But in the end, that had been Kate’s destiny, not hers. Maybe her mother was right, Emmie thought resignedly, as she went to join Alice in the cellar. Maybe she had a small mind, suited only to small things: to wrapping presents and planning parties and putting thousands of seeds into tiny little packets.

Or ladling soup into bowls for soldiers in a canteen somewhere in Paris.

It might not be their decision in the end, Emmie reminded herself. The British might make it for them. They’d had word—not from Captain DeWitt, whom Emmie hadn’t seen in person since Christmas, who wrote of cabbages and kings but never of the war—that all women in British-run aid organizations had been ordered out already.

“Hullo? Alice?” The days were starting to get longer, but it was still winter dark and winter cold in the castle cellar. Emmie heard a scrabbling and a sniffling and saw Alice stumbling to her feet, wiping her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

“I was just . . . getting the seeds,” said Alice, belatedly shoveling a bunch of seed packets into a basket.

“The air down here is dreadful, isn’t it? It always makes my nose run,” said Emmie, giving Alice a chance to collect herself. “Would you like my spare handkerchief? I always bring an extra for cellar work.”

“Thanks,” said Alice thickly, and blew her nose with a honk of despair.

“I’ve just seen Julia and Kate off.” Emmie concentrated on putting the seeds into piles, so many of cabbage, so many of lettuce. “Dave is driving them to the train at Amiens.”

“It’s so strange with everyone gone,” said Alice, putting seeds into the wrong piles. “All the original crew. It makes me feel ancient.”

“We should have the new people soon.”

“Yes, and they’ll probably be all young and cheerful and not have any idea how anything is done and they’ll make fun of us for being so shabby. . . . And goodness knows it’s crowded enough here as it is. There’s never any place to think, even if we could hear ourselves think with all the shelling,” added Alice resentfully. Of all of them, Alice minded the raids the most. “There’s not even any place to have a good cry without someone asking you what you’re sniffling about. And then they just try to jolly you. . . .”

Emmie’s head popped up. “Have I been jollying you?”

“What? Oh, not you. It’s Nell, mostly. And Anne. They’re both so relentlessly cheerful,” said Alice despairingly.

Emmie wasn’t quite sure she would have put it exactly that way. Anne was actually something of a worrier, she worried away at things, single-mindedly, until she got them done. Nell was full of a coiled sort of tension that might be mistaken for gaiety, but wasn’t really. Emmie had been determinedly cheerful enough herself to realize the sort of insecurities it might hide. “They probably have their own demons. Everyone does.”