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I shake my head, hiding a smile. We are in a terrible situation—walking across the country, in danger, separated from our family—and yet simply because he’s here, I’m happy.

“What reasons would those be?” I ask.

He pulls me toward him. “Let’s go get the mattress,” he says, “and I’ll show you every one of them.”

* * *

I wake in the middle of the night and stare at the moon through the open beams of the roof. Between the blanket and Henri’s warmth, it’s cozy here. But it eats at me, the things I haven’t told him.

I don’t realize he’s awake until his mouth brushes my temple. “What’s troubling you, Sarah?” he asks. “I can sense it, you know, when you’re keeping things to yourself.”

I roll toward him. He’s going to learn it all eventually. It may as well be now. “Marie wanted me to go see Yvette when I was in Paris, so I did.”

“Yvette?” he asks. “Why?” There is incredulity in his tone, and I don’t blame him. When I say it aloud, it sounds insane to me too.

“She...was sleeping with some high-ranking German and Marie thought she might help us get papers, at least for Cecelia. But she wouldn’t. She got mad when Cece wouldn’t stay with her and called the guards on us both.”

“You killed her?” he asks softly.

I nod, my breath holding as I wait for some sign of disgust or condemnation. Instead he pushes my hair from my face and his palm rests there, against my jaw. “You didn’t think I’d blame you for that, did you?”

“She’s not the only person I killed,” I whisper.

He tugs me even closer. “It won’t matter. There is nothing you can say that will change how I feel. So tell me.”

My hand curls into a fist against his chest as I begin. I tell him about Cece’s illness, Nadeau’s threat, Claudette’s attack...and what I did in response.

Slowly, as I speak, he unfurls my fingers and rests his own hand over mine.

“I should never have left you alone,” he says when I conclude. “I put you in that position, leaving you the way I did.”

I shake my head. “It’s something inside me, Henri. It grows a little more every time I hurt someone, like a weed. I’m worried it’s going to take over.”

I want him to tell me that’s not the case. I want him to tell me what I feel is normal and will go away. But for the first time, he doesn’t try to reassure me.

“Can you stop?” he asks. It’s an honest question—not a suggestion, not a reprimand. “Can you just let me defend you instead?”

“I’ll try,” I tell him. I wonder if he doubts me as much as I doubt myself.

* * *

I rise in the morning and walk into the house, hoping to get clean clothes before I wash off. And hear a single footstep somewhere behind the kitchen.

“Show yourself,” I announce, reaching for the gun tucked in my waistband. “Or die.”

The steps are light, unhurried, as they approach, and then a child walks into the room. She’s young—maybe eleven or twelve—and wearing clothes I recognize from the room upstairs. Her eyes lift to mine...and I take a shocked step backward. She has the eyes of a time traveler—green eyes, like Henri’s—and then a brilliant, sweet smile lights up her whole face.

“Who are you?” I demand.

Her mouth opens and then closes, uncertain. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to tell you. Am I supposed to tell you?”

I lower the gun. “You must be…Marie’s child?”

She laughs. “Mom, it’s me,” she says in English, without a trace of an accent. “Quinn.”

I blink several times, wondering if I’ve heard her correctly. So much is wrong here. She called me mom. And she is definitely not Cecelia or Charlotte. And if I did have a child, why the hell would I name her Quinn?

“What?” I ask, but already I’m seeing it: I see Henri in her, and also myself. She has his thick hair, his olive skin, his green eyes, but with my bone structure and build. She’s as much a product of the two of us as any child could be.