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He says it as if he’s delivering the weather or informing me that a sale has ended. Too bad, so sad, he might say in my time. I want to lash out, but I force my anger down.
“Taken,” I repeat. “But not dead.”
He shrugs. “Good as dead—they’ll be marched to the work camps over the border, and those who survive the journey rarely survive the camp as well.”
It’s not his words that enrage me—it’s his apathy. The only man I have ever loved may die because of this stupid mission, and he couldn’t care less. I feel it again, that fury and fire, and the way it takes everything terrified and weak inside me and makes it hard, and certain. I lean forward, placing my hands on his desk. “He will survive.”
He frowns. “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation.”
“No,” I reply. “You don’t understand. You’re going to show me where he’s headed, and I’m going to bring him home.”
His jaw swings open. “You?”
“Yes. Me. Now show me the route.”
He is reluctant, but fortunately for us both, he’s too apathetic to fight me. He pulls out a map—there is only one major road leading northeast from Mirepoix, so they’re undoubtedly somewhere along it. The road forks at Valence, and though they will probably continue north, toward Lyon, there’s no guarantee.
“So you see,” he concludes, “there’s really nothing you can do.”
“I can wait for them off the side of the road, south of Valence.”
He laughs. “And then do what, madame? Will you fight the German soldiers with your bare hands?”
I stand to leave. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
My confidence, however, is failing. He’s right. How the hell am I going to fight off several German soldiers single-handedly in order to free Henri? I walk with brisk steps down the Champs-Élysées , trying to come up with a plan that won’t get us both killed. My head remains empty.
When I glance up, I realize I’m standing beside the shop Henri took me to so long ago. The store is closed now, but I press my face to the window as if I can still see him just as he was that day—so handsome in his suit as he leaned against the wall. Sneaking glances across the aisle at me, his mouth curving upward when I caught him looking.
It hits me in the center of my chest, a vacuum that makes me want to fall to my knees. He can’t be dead. He can’t be. I won’t survive it if he is. I have to free him.
A policeman barks at me to move along. I glance at him and swallow down the urge to challenge him, to fight, to punish. Killing Nadeau didn’t cure that urge. It fed it. Focus, I say to myself. Get Henri first. And then you can make everyone pay for what they’ve put you all through.
* * *
Edouard is home when I return. He greets me, equal parts wary and unrepentant. He shouldn’t have slept with Marie in the first place, but what’s done is done and he didn’t judge me when Yvette left, so I suppose I should extend the same courtesy to him.
I lay out my plan to save Henri: I will take a train south. Once I’ve found him, we’ll escape on foot. Of course, it requires a substantial contribution from Marie and Edouard as well. “While I’m gone, I would need you to watch the children. We’ll get to Nanterre as fast as possible, but there’s no way I can do this with them there.”
“There’s no way you can do this regardless of whether they’re there,” Edouard says softly. “How can you take on an entire unit of soldiers singlehandedly? And what if Henri is injured? You can’t carry him home, even with the abilities you have.”
My eyes widen. Marie was pregnant with his child so she could tell him about her ability. I just didn’t realize she was going to tell him about mine too.
Marie doesn’t seem to notice my surprise, however. She’s too busy agreeing with Edouard. “It’s a suicide mission.”
“Can’t you just jump back in time to warn him what’s going to happen?” asks Edouard.
Marie and I exchange a look and she answers for me. “No. Because there’s a chance he’s alive right now. Any change we make will lead Henri to different decisions, ones that could be fatal.”
It’s the part of our gift I hate the most, that potential to make things worse. He nods, though I get the feeling he doesn’t really understand. “At least speak to Yvette before you go,” he says. “See if she’ll get the children papers.”
I hesitate. If I die on this suicide mission, as Marie calls it, talking to Yvette could at least ensure the children are safe from the concentration camps. But Cece is back to her old self—currently toddling around the room on chubby legs, smiling her gap-toothed smile. I’m not sure how any woman who saw her wouldn’t want to take her from me. And Yvette would have the right to.
* * *
The building Yvette is staying in is crawling with soldiers and seems like more of a headquarters than a home. I walk with my head down and covered, fully prepared for this meeting to go poorly. I don’t see how it won’t. Yvette hates me, and more importantly, I hate her. The desire to kill still hums in my blood like a song I’m singing to myself. With each step I take, the sense of foreboding grows.
Her door is guarded by two German soldiers who take their jobs very seriously. Yvette’s companion must be important—another reason not to act on my rage while here. I’m ushered inside a large parlor, with stiff velvet chairs and walnut tables. She makes us wait, of course, but when she finally swans into the room in expensive clothes and silk hose, the smug look on her face falls away.
