CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SIMONE

An unseasonably warm wind gusted in off the Thames, dancing across their faces as they mingled along the roof of 1 Dorset Square, the home of the Free French in London. But nothing warmed Simone like Evangeline’s hand locked in hers, like the kisses they couldn’t stop stealing when the others weren’t looking. Only the occasional roar of RAF bombers punctuated the perfect peace, but even that noise was all too sweet—better them than the Luftwaffe attempting another blitz.

It had started with a goodbye Simone had been all too hasty to make and ended with a pair of Allied planes sweeping over the beaches of Drieborg to extract them. It ended with a girl awaiting them on the military runway, one hand in a sling, a tremor in her chin as her gaze locked with Simone’s.

It ended with the bitter ache in Simone’s belly vanishing all at once, her joints loosening, her heart pushing up into her throat as she wondered if she should forgive, could forgive, if everything that had happened made up for everything that had come before.

It ended with Simone pulling Evangeline into her arms, tears dripping into her blond hair, her breath returning to normal, a normal she hadn’t felt in months.

Their blow to the SS High Command had been more symbolic than they’d hoped; Heinrich Himmler had been at a secret meeting in Berlin when his castle collapsed. But Kreutzer’s mad experiments and his squadron of shadow-imbued soldiers were destroyed. Evangeline and Simone were now working directly for de Gaulle’s Alliance and the British Special Operations Executive, fighting to save the surviving members of Georges-Yves Sauvage’s dismantled network as they forged new ones. Much to Simone’s amusement, Evangeline now wore the Lorraine Cross pinned proudly to her chest.

“And you didn’t even have to steal it,” Simone murmured into Evangeline’s shoulder.

Evangeline tipped Simone’s face up with a finger under her chin. “The Torturer of Troyes might argue that point with you.”

“How unfortunate for him that he cannot.”

Their sextet fell silent, and for a long minute it was only brassy Glenn Miller on the radio and the sounds of London around them, autumn tickling brightly colored leaves and whispering a warning of rain. For a long minute, it was only Evangeline’s body warm against hers as they swayed to “Moonlight Serenade,” as Rebeka nestled in Phillip’s arms nearby, as Liam settled into Daniel’s. No one but themselves to see them dance this way, to care who or what they were. They were heroes, they were Free French, they were survivors.

Qadar. Simone couldn’t help but wonder if there was a preordained quality to what had happened. They’d found another world only to lock it back away; they’d grasped unfathomable power only long enough to rid themselves of it for good. If this was qadar, this river that flowed back to Evangeline, to all the possibility Simone once believed in before the world had battered her down, then she would gladly put her faith in this qadar and let it lead her as it liked.

The song faded from the radio set, and a BBC news bulletin started next. With a smile, Evangeline lowered Simone’s hand, kissed the very tip of her nose, and the six of them gazed into the stars once more.

“Evangeline . . .” Rebeka’s voice was soft and airy, nothing like the girl she’d been. This was the girl who’d slowly emerged in place of the old Rebeka over the past few weeks, heartiness enveloping whittled-down bones and brightness returning to her face. “Evangeline, I’m very sorry about your father.”

Evangeline tightened beside Simone, that reckless saint armoring herself for battle once more. Only Simone had ever seen the soft flesh in the gaps between those plates. “It’s what he deserved.”

Ripped out of Vichy by the Gestapo. Awaiting questioning in Paris. And then a handsome leather belt from a shop on the Champs-Élysées, a kicked-over chair, a stench rising from the forgotten cell.

“I can miss the man without losing sight of the monster he was,” Evangeline said, softer this time. “I can mourn his passing without being sorry that he’s gone.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Liam said. “To shitty fathers everywhere, and a world a little less shitty without them in it.”

“To having just one world to manage,” Daniel added as he wrestled the flask back from Liam for a sip.

Phillip raised his own flask. “Hear, hear.”

“To an after,” Rebeka said, and smiled up at the stars.

Tomorrow morning, a military plane would take Liam and Phillip home to America, and Rebeka and Daniel with them, sanctuary granted by Uncle Sam. Phillip couldn’t stop talking about the business he wanted to start, with the help of his friends from school: building digital machines like his frequency folder, at least, after he’d overseen the creation of a handful for the US Army’s use. Rebeka seemed all too happy to help him. Liam talked, hesitantly, about returning to Princeton to finish his master’s work, and Daniel had mumbled something about music—that he longed to play again.

“I wish we could go home, too,” Simone said, shrinking down against the roof. She hadn’t even realized how much she’d wanted it until she said it out loud. “I miss the way Paris was before.” Not all of it, of course—but enough that she could call it home.

Evangeline brought their joined hands up to her mouth and placed a gentle kiss on Simone’s knuckles. Then her fingertips, each in turn. “The tide is turning. The Russians are putting up a fierce fight on the Eastern front, too. When this war’s over, there’ll be plenty of work there for you.”

Simone turned toward her and savored the way her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Is that so?”

“The Germans are terrible guests.”

Simone cast her gaze down. “I’m not sure anyone will give me the chance.”

“The crack shot of Libération-Nord, one of the Wewelsburg Five? I think you might be surprised.” Evangeline arched one golden eyebrow. “And if not, I’m sure I can demand it of de Gaulle.”

Simone snorted and leaned closer to her. “That sounds terrifying.”

“I’m good at terrifying.”

“I know. I love seeing it.”

Simone caught her face in her hands and drew her in for another kiss. She wondered if Evangeline could taste the darkness on her, the forest and the demons and the blood and gunpowder. It had suited her at the time. Her time spent on the trail, the rifle in her hand. She almost hated to be dragged back into this mundane world she’d left behind.

But there was plenty else that suited her as well.

She kissed Evangeline, her honey and sunlight girl, and the world and its dark shadows fell away.