Chapter 7 Audrey 
BERLIN, GERMANY | NOVEMBER 1938
His gold pen is gone,” Ilse said. “The engraved one Mama gave him for their twentieth anniversary.”
Audrey looked up from her seat on the couch in the lounge off Ira’s study. Through the open glass double doors between the two rooms, she could see Ilse standing behind her father’s desk, the surface of which was strewn with papers stuck together from an overturned inkwell. She was wearing her heaviest dress and a thick wool cardigan. They’d both chosen grey and black clothing today without speaking of it, Audrey realized.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Ilse rubbed her red eyes. “There may have been some money, too, I don’t know. This drawer was forced open. It must have been locked for a reason.”
They’d spent the morning cleaning up after the looting. It had given them a task to focus on to stem the tide of grief that threatened to overwhelm them. The bedrooms had been ransacked quickly, drawers pulled out in search of valuables. But the thieves must have known there couldn’t be much left after the pile of jewellery they’d swiped from Ilse’s dresser. The sitting room and dining room had been the worst destroyed. When the women finished sweeping up the shards of china in the dining room, Ilse had moved on to the final room—Ira’s study—whilst Audrey sat down to write to her father.
She explained all that had happened yesterday, with Ira’s murder, then Ruth and Ephraim’s abduction, and the riots.
I have never in my life encountered such violence, Father. Surely it must make the London papers—you may read of it before this even reaches you, and I am sorry for that. I hope you will not be left worrying for long. I see now that you were right, I should have come home. But who was to know this madness would escalate so quickly?
We are safe in the house, though. For now. But we need your help. I have no access to the trust you set up with Herr Kaplan. Ilse’s passport is invalid, and I have no knowledge of foreign relations or immigration, where to even begin the process of trying to get her out of Germany. But I need you to understand—since I know you will suggest it straightaway—that I have absolutely no intention of leaving here without her.
Please write back as soon as you receive this.
With affection,
Audrey
Audrey finished the letter and stared at her own handwriting, as though hoping an answer would appear between the lines. She had never craved her father’s support and intervention more than she did now. She blinked hard, trying to rouse her tired eyes. They had managed to get a little sleep, but their dreams were of gunshots, and Audrey had woken sometime in the night to rioting in the distance, someone’s life being dismantled.
The sound of shuffling papers and soft thuds continued, punctuated with sniffles as Ilse carried on tidying the study. A shiver ran through Audrey. She glanced across the hall at the broken front window. They had hung a thick blanket over it, but it did little to help as the autumn wind blew in from the west.
“It’s freezing,” she said. “I’m going to go feed the furnace.”
“Good idea.” Ilse brushed her hands together. “And I suppose I’ll need to telephone Matya next.”
In the damp cellar, Audrey opened the furnace door, welcoming the blast of hot air on her face. As she shoveled coal, she thought how she’d never done a task like this in her life; this work had always been within the purview of servants. Change could be so sudden sometimes, so drastic. As she climbed the narrow stairs back to the main floor, she wondered how much more change was yet to come.
Ilse was still in Ira’s study, which always smelled of furniture polish and ink. Her face was buried in her hands, and Audrey went to her.
“We should be preparing for his funeral today,” Ilse said, anger echoing off the walls of her hollow voice. “It’s not enough that we lose him, but we also don’t get to bury him properly? To grieve him the way we’re meant to?”
“I know,” Audrey said, embracing her.
When Michael had died, the family sat shiva. Audrey had come over with her father and Sophie to pay their respects, passing the pitcher of water on the doorstep and the shrouded hallway mirror. The ritual made perfect sense to her. The aftermath of a death was a time to sink into oneself, to hold tight to the memories of the person who was lost. To nurture the wound that it was without distraction. Yet here was Ilse, sorting through her dead father’s ransacked office with hardly a moment to spare for her grief. It was cruel.
Audrey pressed her eyes shut, fighting her own tears. As they cried, Audrey squeezed Ilse tightly, hoping her arms might be enough to hold her friend together.
“Where did they take his body, Audrey? It isn’t right.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, trying not to think about where it might be. “I don’t know.”
After a few minutes, the wave of grief passed. There would be others, Audrey knew, and she would be here to help Ilse through them, she thought, handing her friend the handkerchief from her pocket.
Ilse composed herself, then returned her attention to the desk she’d mostly managed to reorganize. “Before you came in, I found something I wanted to talk to you about. Look.” She lifted a sheaf of paper. “It’s Papa’s bank statement.”
Audrey scanned it, swallowed her surprise at the numbers. Though the family lived well, Ira’s textile business was even more lucrative than Audrey had ever presumed. No wonder he had dug in so ferociously to hold on to his company.
“Oh, my. Ilse, this is…”
“I know. It’s more than I suspected. I didn’t even know what bank he used. He never talked about work with me, really. But this money can’t possibly sit in the bank now that he’s—” She stopped, unable to say the word. “We need to access it.”
Audrey reviewed the document again. The name and address of a credit cooperative in Berlin’s financial district was listed at the top. “They won’t give it to you, surely?” she asked.
“No, not to his daughter. And I can’t leave the house.” Ilse locked eyes with Audrey. “But they might hand it over to his accounting secretary with a handwritten letter from him authorizing the withdrawal.”
Audrey’s brow furrowed. “Do you know his accounting secretary? I thought—”
“It’s you, Audrey.”
Audrey took a step back. “Ilse…”
But Ilse was adamant. “Go get changed into your smartest skirt and jacket. I’ll forge the letter using Papa’s handwriting. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just the signature. I can do it.”
Audrey’s brain whirred, trying to grasp some other possibility.
“You can do it,” Ilse said. “I know you can.”
There was a firmness in her tone that Audrey rarely heard. She was determined to claim something from the ashes of all she had already lost.
“Okay,” Audrey said. “I’ll do it.”
The cool morning breeze was bracing on Audrey’s nerves as she made her way from the post office, where she mailed the letter to her father, on to the bus that would take her to Potsdamerplatz in the financial district. The bank statement was tucked in her pocketbook, which she clutched in her gloved hand. The ruse was simple: she would walk into the bank, confident and nonchalant, introduce herself as Ira Kaplan’s accounting secretary, and tell them he had sent her to access the funds. It all felt a bit outrageous, but these were unprecedented, dire circumstances, so she prepared herself for the required performance, hoping she would be convincing.
As the bus wound through the streets of Berlin, Audrey looked out the window, swaying gently with the motion, appalled by what she saw: Another synagogue had been utterly ruined by vandals. The stone edges of the windows and doors were blackened with soot from fire damage and the inside was dark, giving the building the ominous appearance of an empty skull. Most of the shingles were burned, rafters exposed and sagging. Along the route, there were more burned-out buildings and broken windows, glass shimmering on the pavement beneath, families huddled together outside. One shop had been painted with something, but the bus turned a corner before Audrey could make out the details.
What in the name of God had happened? Two days before, she’d been wallowing in her melancholy about having to return to London, but the truth was that her reluctance had nothing to do with leaving Berlin itself anymore, and far more to do with abandoning Ilse to whatever fate this new Germany had in store for her. It was clear now that the Nazi flags weren’t coming down. Audrey didn’t recognize her own city. Reason was not prevailing, as Ira had hoped it would. She must find a way to get them both back to London. But whatever method she found for escape, they would need money.
Her sense of foreboding increasing by the minute, Audrey disembarked and walked the final block. But as the credit cooperative came into view, she stopped in her tracks. A man ploughed into her elbow from behind, muttering his irritation. She hardly even noticed him glance back as she stared at the scene before her.
The bank was ravaged.
Like the Kaplans’ home, its front windows were all smashed. A CLOSED sign still hung, absurdly, in the open wall where the window should have been. A six-pointed black Star of David had been crudely painted on the door, and the word JUD stood out in large block letters on the wall above it. Crumpled pieces of paper lined the pavement outside the bank, like snow. The words im Urlaub in Buchenwald were scrawled on the wall.
On holiday in Buchenwald.
She knew that name. Buchenwald. It was some sort of work camp for arrested Jews. She had overheard Ira and Ruth talking about it, seen the newspaper headline when she went to toss coffee grounds into the bin.
Dread trickled through her veins. In the dizzying aftermath of Ira’s murder, she hadn’t really considered where Ruth and Ephraim might have been taken. That wherever it was, it was a place. Something real and horrible. That it might be somewhere like Buchenwald. Everything that had happened yesterday wasn’t random. The night of terror was clearly the beginning of something systematic. The violence had crested in a great, orchestrated wave, and Audrey was afraid of how many more people would be taken down in the undertow.
She headed back to the Kaplans’ in a distracted haze, eyes on her feet. The bank was inaccessible, and so, too, she presumed, was the money. With the country in this state, she wasn’t sure how long it would take her letter to reach her father, or for him to take any kind of action—she had no idea what—to secure Ilse’s safe passage to England. All she could do was put one foot in front of the other.
But sometimes, a person could become so fixated on avoiding the obstacles right in front of her that she didn’t see the ones creeping in from the sides.
On the Kaplans’ doorstep, Audrey unsnapped her pocketbook for her key, but it fell from her hands, which she realized were shaking. Her hands never shook. It was a point of pride for a skilled pianist, to have fingers so controlled that they gave the illusion of movement independent from the player. She stooped to retrieve the key, not noticing the two men approaching from behind.
“Excuse me, Fräulein.”
Audrey spun around and felt her stomach drop somewhere into the region of her knees. Two uniformed officers stood at the bottom of the steps. She vaguely registered a black car parked a few feet away from them. The men were about the same height, and dressed almost identically, with black trousers, boots, and long grey overcoats with the eagle and swastika emblazoned on the arm. They peered up at her from beneath the rims of their matching caps. Confusion and fear raced one another around her mind. Why were they here? Had they come for Ilse?
“Yes?” Audrey said. It was a moment too long before she forced a smile. “Guten Tag, meine herren.”
She’d gotten used to officers winking at her, making comments on her appearance when she was out in the streets. She usually offered a tight smile to satisfy the underlying demand for acknowledgement, and carried on her way.
“Guten Tag,” one of them said. The other just watched her. “Is this your house, Fräulein?” the first one asked, and Audrey’s stomach gave a jolt as he began to scale the steps toward her.
The other man spoke now. “You have a key,” he said, gesturing to her hand.
“Yes,” she said, unable to deny it, then answered with the first story that came to mind. “I’m the accounting secretary for the man who lives here. For his business. But he has not been at the office, so I thought I would try his home.”
The first officer reached into his overcoat and withdrew a piece of paper. He ran a finger down the page, glanced at her. “You are employed by Ira Kaplan?” he asked, frowning.
He took in her appearance, from her curled hair to her buckled black boots and up again, lingering on her face, her red lips. She was a performer, used to people staring at her, but this man’s gaze raked her in a way that made her skin feel as though it had been exposed to the elements. He had rather striking green eyes that were darkened by his narrowed brow. His boxy face stood in direct opposition to his long nose, and his moustache was mostly red whilst his hair shone blond. He looked as though he had borrowed his features from several different men.
“Yes,” she said, keeping her expression impassive.
“What is your name, Fräulein?”
Audrey hesitated. Her identification papers showed her name as Audrey Gertrud James. Audrey after her father’s mother, Gertrud after her mother’s grandmother. Despite growing up in Berlin with an English name, she had never felt uncomfortable with it. But she thought it might raise a flag for these officers, whose tones were already thick with suspicion.
“Audrey James,” she said.
The blond man watched her intently as the other one joined them on the steps. “I am Obersturmbannführer Müller,” the second officer said. “This is Brigadeführer Vogt. I think perhaps you should come inside with us, Fräulein James.”
Audrey felt the blood drain from her face, but she nodded, hoping her rouge and lipstick would suffice to mask her ashen complexion. As she turned the key in the lock, she sent up a silent prayer that Ilse was not downstairs waiting for her. She fiddled with the key as long as she dared, rattling it.
“It sticks sometimes, I do apologize,” she said loudly. With a surge of fear she pushed the door open, then glanced around as the two officers swept in behind her. She startled when the one called Vogt pounded on the door with a fist, forcing it shut. It hadn’t closed properly since the looters broke the lock.
“What happened to it?” he asked her.
Audrey shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she said, allowing her voice to carry.
They stepped past her and into the spacious foyer, taking in the large, open rooms, gleaming hardwood floors, crystal chandeliers, and richly papered walls. She hung back now, unsure how to proceed or what, exactly, was happening. She strained her ears but could hear no sign of Ilse. Hopefully she had fled to the attic or had been there already. Audrey couldn’t contemplate the alternative.
She flashed a smile at the officers as she moved toward the stairs to confirm Ilse’s whereabouts. “I’m just going to go—”
“Sit there, Fräulein.” Herr Müller indicated the divan in the sitting room.
Audrey perched on the edge of the sofa, pocketbook in her lap, trying not to appear too much at home, as Müller and Vogt left the room, each in a different direction. What were they looking for? When Müller went upstairs, she held her breath, tucking one foot behind the other to stop her legs from jiggling. As Müller’s footsteps creaked on the floorboards above, Vogt returned from the dining room. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as he stood in the doorway, watching her. There was something off about this man; she hated looking at him, but she forced an expression of innocence.
A moment later, Müller came back downstairs, and Audrey’s breathing returned almost to normal. He had evidently not discovered Ilse.
He took a seat across from her. He was younger than Vogt by several years and a different sort of person altogether—plain-looking with a brown moustache that at least matched his short-clipped hair, and brown eyes that studied her with a penetrating, though not malicious, stare.
“What do you know of Ira Kaplan?” he asked her.
Audrey sat up a little straighter. “He’s my employer. I—”
“Not anymore,” Vogt piped up. He was still standing off to the side.
Audrey feigned confusion as her heart stung. “Why not?”
“Because he is dead, Fräulein James.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh dear. How did he die?”
“He took it upon himself to talk back to the SS,” Vogt said with a harsh bite.
Grief and anxiety coursed through Audrey’s body, but she needed answers that these men might be able to provide. “And what of his family? Have they been taken to Buchenwald with the others?”
Vogt once again withdrew the paper from inside his jacket and consulted it. “Kaplan wife and son detained. Not sure where.”
“You are well-informed for a secretary, Fräulein,” Müller said.
“I have seen the city, Herr Müller,” Audrey said. “And the papers. I take it yesterday’s events are part of a strategy to eradicate the Jews from Berlin? Is that not the Party’s intent?”
Müller’s dark eyes sharpened on her. “From Germany, at the very least.”
“One daughter unaccounted for,” Vogt continued. “Per the register. Ilse Kaplan. Do you know of her whereabouts?”
Audrey seized the opportunity. “No, she is dead,” she said dispassionately. “Of a fever, I believe. Last winter.”
Vogt checked his papers again. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. Quite.”
“Well, less work for us then,” Vogt said. “If only more of them died of fevers.”
“May I see your papers, please, Fräulein James?” Müller asked.
Audrey had to unstick her throat after Vogt’s comment. “Of course.”
She fished them out of her pocketbook. Müller examined them, then passed them back.
“English father and German mother,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And how did you come to be employed in the office of a Jewish textile maker?”
“My parents are both dead,” she lied. “I needed a job. I’m good with figures, and it was available.”
They waited.
“I’m no friend of Jews,” she said, feeling her tongue twist around the words. “I’m not proud of it. I had few options for income.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Vogt’s gaze linger on her again. “Indeed,” he muttered.
“May I ask why exactly you are here today?” Audrey said, desperate to move these strange proceedings along and get the officers out of the house.
“We are here to inspect the home,” Müller said as Vogt wandered over to the sideboard and helped himself to a drink. “The place has been looted,” Müller continued, scanning the walls. “No silverware, jewellery. Many items are missing from the property register the previous inhabitants submitted in May. And odd things too. Bedclothes,” he added, brow pinched in confusion. “I have recently moved to Berlin from the south. Vogt from Hamburg. We require new accommodations, and I believe this will serve nicely.”
Audrey’s mind was fixed on his comment about the missing bedclothes. It took her a moment to catch up. “I’m sorry?” she asked. “You are… you’re moving into this house?”
He glanced over at Vogt, who nodded his assent.
“Yes,” Müller said. “As some of the finer houses have been vacated by migrating or deported Jews, the Party has reclaimed them as housing for senior officers. It is part of the Führer’s broader plan for the Aryanization of Jewish property and industry.”
Audrey clenched her jaw. Ruth had feared Ira’s business would be taken over, but their home?
“We have inspected a few vacant properties, and this is the grandest thus far. Plenty of space. It will do. We will require your key, Fräulein, and that will be all.”
If these officers were confiscating the Kaplans’ home, she and Ilse would be forced to leave—God only knew how soon, perhaps that very night—and go… where?
“What about my job?” she asked, buying time as her mind flailed, trying to avert this new catastrophe.
“What of it?” Müller said.
“If my employer is dead, what am I to do?”
He shrugged. “I cannot see how that is of any concern to us.”
Vogt finished his drink and set the dirty glass down on the table. Audrey’s mind flashed with an idea.
“Surely you will need a housekeeper,” she said with a demure smile. “And I need a job. With my parents dead, I must work. A pair of busy officers like yourselves certainly don’t have time to manage your own meals and laundry. Do the washing up,” she added, gesturing to Vogt’s glass. “I assume you must have planned on hiring help.”
Müller frowned. “I don’t think—”
“Hold on a moment, Müller,” Vogt said. “Do you know the house well enough, Fräulein?”
Audrey steadied her balance on the fine line she must tread. “I have been here a few times. To collect papers from Herr Kaplan, if he was working from his home. But I’m a fast learner.”
“We will need a housekeeper, Müller,” Vogt said. “She is unemployed and already has some familiarity with the place. A good fit, I think.”
She forced herself not to flinch under his unsettling gaze. It was like staring into a tiger’s maw.
Müller glared at Vogt. “I do not think that will be necessary.”
“I do,” he argued.
“I would agree,” Audrey added, mustering her courage. With these men in the house, for better or worse, all the household expenses would fall to them. The window would be fixed, coal and groceries would be purchased. In the short term, her and Ilse’s immediate needs would be met. The arrangement would enable their survival until Audrey could find a way to get Ilse to England. She felt a strange surge of emotion; relief and panic and disgust all braided together into a noose that scratched at her throat.
“It makes perfect sense to me,” Vogt said.
“Then I accept.”
“Excuse me—” Müller began, but Vogt cut him off.
“Excellent.”
Audrey beamed, her lips dry. “It would be an honour to serve you both, and by extension, the Reich. Perhaps it could be a live-in position? This is a far nicer home than the place I’m currently in, you see.” She paused. “There’s such competition with Jews and immigrants to let a decent flat. And it would be more convenient to not have to travel to work.”
“I think that would be our preference,” Vogt said.
“Vogt,” Müller said sharply. “A word.”
The two men disappeared across the hall, Vogt trailing in Müller’s wake as they headed toward the lounge. Audrey took a long, shaky breath. Already her mind was turning to the details, the logistics. She would suggest Ilse’s room for herself. Fortunately, Ilse’s and the guest bedroom Audrey occupied were the smallest, and surely Vogt and Müller would take the largest rooms for themselves. And then it hit her: Ilse would have to live in the attic, hiding, for some indeterminate period of time. She would be a prisoner in her own home, yet, unless something went horribly wrong, her jailers wouldn’t even know she existed. Audrey’s stomach knotted with guilt, but she couldn’t see another way out of this. There was no way she could overpower their decision to confiscate the home, and arguing with them on it would only draw suspicion—or worse.
The men returned a moment later, and Audrey stood up. Müller’s face was blotchy whilst Vogt strolled into the room smiling.
“Very well, Fräulein,” he said. “We will employ you. You will receive ten reichsmarks a week in addition to room and board.”
Audrey nodded. If room and board were covered, they could at least use that income for their eventual escape plans.
“Excellent,” Vogt said.
Müller stood with his hands on his hips, overcoat open to reveal the gleaming insignia on his jacket. Judging by the numerous decorations, he was high-ranking. “We will need you to conduct an inventory of the house, first thing,” he directed at her. “To determine the entire property’s value and compare that against what was catalogued when the Jews registered it. Anything of significant value had to be reported. All Jewish-owned businesses have also been seized, effective today,” he added.
Audrey refrained from any reaction.
Vogt handed her the papers he’d been consulting earlier. “Work into the evening, if you must, and have it ready by morning. We will collect our things from our hotels and move in tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
“Yes, sir.”
“Be here early in the morning for our arrival,” Müller said.
The men made their way to the front door.
“Thank you for the opportunity,” Audrey said. “I shall see you both tomorrow.”
“Indeed, Fräulein,” Vogt said. “Heil Hitler.”
“Heil Hitler,” Audrey parroted.
When they had driven away, she wrestled the door shut, then leaned back against it and let her breath out, closing her eyes. Her pulse was still racing, and she only now noticed the prickling sensation on her back, perspiration from the stress. She took a moment to collect herself as best she could, dreading what she knew she must do next.
Upstairs, she opened the door into Ilse’s room.
Staring up at the attic access, an overwhelming sense of shame at the blow she was about to deliver to Ilse settled on her like a cloak. She wanted to suspend this moment, to go on with their evening, watch Ilse read a book as she played the piano, hide out just a little longer from reality. But they couldn’t. What was happening beyond these walls had found its way in, and it was infusing everything, like poisonous gas.
“Come on down, Ilse,” she called. “Or let me up. It’s safe.”
No, it isn’t.
The door opened and Ilse’s head appeared in the void, eyes wide and bright.
“Audrey! Baruch hashem,” she hissed. She lowered the ladder and scrambled down. “What happened? Who were those men?”
Her shoulders slumped inward, and she was clutching her hands together in front of a wrinkled skirt. It made Audrey want to weep.
“Their names are Müller and Vogt,” she replied. “SS officers. High-ranking, I think.”
Ilse gasped. “What did they want? Was it about Mama? Ephraim?”
“No.” There was no point in holding back. “Ilse, they’ve confiscated the house.”
Ilse’s hands stilled. “What?”
As Audrey explained that the credit cooperative was gone—along with their money—and that the officers had confirmed the attacks and riots were part of a process to transform Germany into an entirely Aryan state, that there was no place for Jews here anymore, Ilse sank onto the bed, hugging her knees to her chest. Audrey hated herself for having to relay everything to her, and she hated the Nazis for stripping Ilse of the only remaining freedoms she had.
“But how—” Ilse choked on a sob. “What are we going to do? Where will I go?”
“You will stay here. I’ll keep you safe until we can flee. We’ll wait for my father’s response to my letter.”
“And I’ll be trapped in the attic. It’s going to be winter soon. I’ll freeze up there.”
The thought had already occurred to Audrey. “I hope we’ll be long gone before winter sets in.”
Ilse stared into the middle distance. “How did we get here?” she asked, and her eyes were glazed over, staring back in time at things she couldn’t change. “How did this happen? Why was it allowed to? How do they wield such power?”
“I don’t know,” Audrey said, with an ache deep in her heart. “I don’t know what we’ve become. It all happened so fast.”
“Except it didn’t, did it? And now… I’m going to die. Aren’t I? We all are.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Audrey said, reaching for Ilse’s hand. It was cold. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” There was no way she would, even if her father arrived on the doorstep and threw a net around her.
Ilse’s eyes shone. “Except I think you have to. How can it possibly be safe for you to work so close to those men? They’ll find us out, you know they will. They’ll learn you’re not what you say you are. Somehow, they know everything about everyone. They’re too powerful, Audrey. You have to go back to London.”
“I won’t. Not until we find a way to bring you with me.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“We’ll see what my father says, we’ll find a way—”
“That’s not what I mean,” Ilse said, fixing Audrey with a look. It was the face she made whenever she was about to say something Audrey would disagree with. “I’ve thought about almost nothing else, and I can’t leave without knowing what’s happened to Mama and Ephraim. I have to believe they’re still alive—until I know for sure that they aren’t. We don’t know how long they’ll be detained, or where.”
On holiday in Buchenwald. The words flashed in Audrey’s mind.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Ilse was saying. “But I can’t leave without them. What if they come back, and find me gone?”
“Ilse—”
“This is our home. I have to stay here until they come back.” She took a deep breath. “But you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. Ilse. How can you possibly survive in the attic without me here and with them living downstairs? How will you eat, drink, go to the toilet?” Her mind was already maneuvering around the minefield of problems in the distance, black as trees in a dark and unfamiliar forest.
“Audrey, be sensible—”
“No, you be sensible,” Audrey said. “I can’t leave you. I love you more than anything.” As she spoke the words, she found that she meant them more than ever. A strange sort of feeling trickled through her; at once heat and nervous chill, profound understanding and disorientation. She wanted to embrace Ilse, as they had so many hundreds of times before, but it felt different now. There was something electric in it, something that drew her in and terrified her in equal measure. She fought to shake the sensation. “I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
Ilse’s eyes stayed on Audrey’s. “That’s what my father said too.”