They entered the house, squinting as their eyes adjusted to the dim light. Sun shone through the windows, but it was much darker than the clearing. The air was heavy with the scent of smoke, and the burned floorboards beneath their feet creaked and cracked with every footfall.
“Hello?” Audrey called out, but there was no reply.
They didn’t make it farther than the sitting room before Friedrich stopped her. “There’s no one here,” he said. “Not alive, anyway. They must have been found out.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know. But there is no other explanation for this. We need to leave now. The local authorities might show up, and we have no reason to be here that they would accept. Or the people who targeted the Von Albrechts could return. We have no real idea what we just walked into. We need to leave, Audrey. I’m serious.”
When Audrey didn’t move, Friedrich faced her square-on. “None of us wants this to be true. But it is. We will think of something else.”
“There is nothing else, Friedrich. There’s no other option,” Audrey pressed, panic rising in her chest. “We’ve been over—”
He held her shoulders. “We cannot rail against what is true, Audrey,” he said. “No matter how much we wish it were not. There is nothing these people can do for us now, God help them. I promise you we will find another answer.”
“How? How will we keep her safe now?”
“Because we must!” he snapped.
He turned from her, but Audrey remained still. “You love her, don’t you?” she blurted.
Friedrich halted, looked back. She knew by the expression of angst on his face that she was right, and dismay settled on her like the ash floating around this burned-out house. Her eyes stung with it.
Friedrich shifted his feet.
“I do,” he said, and though she’d expected it, the admission cut her. “And I know you do too.”
They stared at one another in the remains of the Von Albrecht sitting room as silence stretched between them. Tears threatened, but Audrey beat them back. He could never know how much she loved Ilse, could never love her like Audrey did, anchored with the compounding weight of a lifetime of friendship.
Audrey swept past him without a word and into the harsh light of the clearing. The crow was pecking at the dead man’s body now, and took flight in alarm as Audrey strode past, its shrill cry echoing the turmoil in her heart.
Chapter 23
Audrey
BERLIN, GERMANY | MARCH 1939
Audrey stomped her boots on the porch, trying to knock some warmth into her toes. She cupped her coffee in her hands, breathed in the aromatic steam that was always a comfort to her. Her thighs were cold from sitting on the stone stoop, but she didn’t care. She needed to be outside the confines of the house, revive herself in the fresh air.
It was still dark, the streetlights on. She’d woken well before dawn, her mind restlessly trying to work out what to do next. They’d arrived back in Berlin the previous afternoon in a state of disbelief, stiff from the lengthy round-trip journey. None of them said much to one another. Friedrich had told them to eat, sleep, and they would regroup in the morning.
Audrey stared across the street at the Richters’ house without really seeing it. What she wouldn’t give to go back, just for a while, to how things used to be. To live there again with her father and Sophie. To go back to that beautiful time when she had no idea that any of this lurked in their future.
She shook back her coat sleeve to glance at her watch.
5:49 a.m.
She thought of Ludwig’s threat, his ultimatum for Ilse and Daniel to be gone in forty-eight hours. Not even a day remained. And what would happen once the cell discovered Friedrich and Audrey hadn’t abided by their demands? Her sleepless night had presented an idea, though she was doubtful of Ilse’s reaction to it.
She exhaled a cloud of fog and went inside. Ilse was awake now, seated in the lounge off her father’s study, a fire flickering in the grate.
“Hi,” she said as Audrey entered. “Daniel’s still asleep. Yesterday exhausted him, poor thing.” She was curled up on the sofa in her robe and slippers, feet tucked under her, as usual. “What were you doing outside? It’s freezing.”
“I know,” Audrey said. “I needed some air.”
“I know how that is,” Ilse said with a mild bite. “I was looking forward to more fresh air.”
Audrey sighed and took a seat next to her. “You were willing to go to the Netherlands for Daniel.”
Ilse watched her, nodded.
“I know it’s farther away, but would you be willing to go to my aunt’s, in Alnwick? In England? And maybe I would go with you this time?”
“But it’s so much farther away, Audrey, so much more risk to get there, especially with Daniel. I told you I wouldn’t go to England with you those first days after”—her voice shook on the rough terrain of the memory—“after all this started, because I need to be here. I never wanted to leave this house in the first place, and that remains true. If there is a war coming, like Friedrich says, how could I possibly get back to Berlin from England when Ephraim and Mama return? Even with an English passport? I—”
“But it’s dire now, Ilse, with Ludwig’s threats, you can’t…” Understanding hit her in the face.
“What?” Ilse asked.
“You don’t want to leave him, do you?”
Ilse swallowed, fixed her eyes on her own knees. “Daniel? Of course I won’t.”
“Friedrich,” Audrey said. “I mean Friedrich, Ilse.”
Ilse was silent, and Audrey felt something release inside herself, a pressure that had been building for months. Despite her feelings for Ilse, the future she yearned for with her and could not have, their shared past still remained. That friendship, that sisterhood, still existed beneath the layers of complication.
