Eva didn’t see Erich for the next few weeks, but somehow, knowing he was there, knowing he was feeding information to the priest, brought her some comfort, though the idea of a German ally was still taking some getting used to. It was a reminder that it didn’t matter where someone had come from; virtue could live within everyone. Knowing that Erich was apparently standing up for goodness at the peril of his own life made Eva want to be braver, too.

By June, the flowers were all in splendid bloom, and the flood of children had picked up again, thanks to the Germans’ increased fervor in rooting out Jews wherever they were hiding. There were more adults now than ever pouring into the forests and hills around Aurignon, too, because of the increasing demands of the Germans for forced labor. In January, the Germans had tried to press another quarter million Frenchmen into service, leading to a French law passed in February, requiring men born between 1920 and 1922 to go to work for the führer. In April, another 120,000 men were called up. The result was that a rising number of men were fed up with the invaders and were finally ready to fight. The armed résistants hiding in the forest swelled from hundreds to thousands, maybe even tens of thousands across France. It was impossible to know, because the maquisards, the fighters who made up the armed Maquis groups, specialized in staying hidden, able to move at a moment’s notice. And increasingly, they were confronting the Germans with violence. Rémy still hadn’t returned, and Eva worried more with each passing day that with his explosives expertise, he was on the front line of whatever dangerous things were going on. Père Clément had heard mentions of him here and there—that he had played a role in bombing a train track near Tresnay, that he’d been in on a weapons raid of a police station in Riom—but Eva felt very removed from the news. Still, it was a deep comfort to hear each time that he was still alive.

Eva and Geneviève were working late one sunny morning on a batch of papers for a hundred new labor service dodgers when Père Clément appeared at the library door, followed by Joseph. Both women looked up, and Geneviève jumped to her feet.

“Gérard!” she exclaimed, moving toward him with pink cheeks, but he didn’t even look at her. His eyes were on Eva, who stood slowly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The group you’ve been crafting documents for, they have to move quickly. I need whatever you can provide, immediately,” he said.

“What’s happened?”

“The Germans are getting too close. They need to move deeper into the forest before they’re found, and I want to help them, but the leaders there don’t trust me yet. They’re from a different region of France, and they don’t know me well. If I brought them documents…”

“You want to use our documents as a way in?” Eva asked.

He frowned. “Eva, I’m trying to save their lives. Please, help me to do that.”

She glanced at Père Clément. He nodded slightly. “We’re not close to being done yet, Gérard,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at the mess of documents covering the table. “Well, what have you completed? Identity cards?”

“Only a few dozen. Although most of the ration cards are finished.”

Joseph waved his hand dismissively. “Ration cards won’t do them much good in the middle of nowhere. But at least it’s something. Here, give me what you have.”

Something made Eva hesitate. “That’s not the arrangement we have with the maquisards. They send a courier.”

Joseph took a step closer and gently cupped Eva’s chin in his hand. “Eva, you trust me, don’t you?”

She looked into his eyes and saw at once the young man who’d stood on the steps of the Sorbonne Library eleven months ago and warned her to save her family. Guilt surged through her, as well as remorse for doubting him, then and now. “Of course I do.”

“I’m doing this to protect the fellows out there. Do you understand that? Rémy might be among them.” He was still touching her chin, still staring into her eyes, and Eva knew he could see the pain there. “If you trust me with these documents, I promise I’ll do everything I can to locate him. But, Eva, if the Germans get there before I do…” They both knew the sentence didn’t need to be completed.

“Gérard, perhaps I can help,” Geneviève spoke up beside Eva. She was staring at the two of them with concern. “Let me come with you.”

“It’s better if I go alone.”

“But if something happens to you…”

“It won’t.” He turned back to Eva. “There’s no time to waste, Eva. What’ll it be?”

Eva exchanged looks once more with Père Clément, who nodded. If Rémy was out there in the forest, and the Germans had the maquisards in their sights, there was no other choice. She had to do what she could to save them. Quickly, she shuffled the completed ration cards and documents into a stack and thrust them at Joseph. “Promise me that if you see Rémy, you’ll tell him I’m thinking of him.”

Joseph frowned. “Eva, he cannot come back. He’s needed out there.”

“Please, just promise me.”

He hesitated before nodding. “I’ll deliver your message.” And then he was gone with the documents they’d toiled over, the ones with the false names and real faces of the men hidden in the trees, waiting to fight. And though Eva trusted Joseph with her life, though she knew he had tried to save her once and would do it again, she couldn’t help but feel a tiny tingle of doubt. If he wasn’t cautious enough, if he crossed paths with the wrong person on his journey, he could be handing a hit list over to the Germans instead of delivering salvation to the Resistance fighters. And she would have had a hand in it.

“You did the right thing,” Père Clément said, watching Eva closely.

“Did I?” she asked.

“We have to take all the opportunities we can to preserve life,” he said.

“But what if someone is following him? What if he leads them right to them?”

“It’s a chance we have to take, I think.”

“Don’t you ever wonder if this is all for nothing? What if all we’re doing is prolonging the inevitable? What if we’re playing right into their hands?”

“None of it is in vain as long as one life is saved, and you’ve already saved hundreds.” He smiled gently. “As for the rest, Eva, you have to trust in God and wait for him to send you a sign. I have often found that in my darkest hour, he is there.”

But as Père Clément turned to go, Eva didn’t feel much better. In fact, she felt like the net around Aurignon was being cinched tighter by the day. If the Germans had an idea where the maquisards were hiding in the forest, and if they’d been tipped off more than once about the refugee children, who was to say they didn’t know about her, too? She shivered as she sat back down to work.

“Is there something between you and Gérard?” Geneviève asked a few seconds later. In her troubled train of thought, Eva had almost forgotten the other woman was there. Now, as she looked up, it took her a second to remind herself that Gérard was the given name Joseph was using. No one around town referred to him as anything but Faucon.

“No, of course not,” Eva said. From the stricken look on Geneviève’s face, and the heat still evident on her cheeks, Eva suddenly realized what was happening. “Geneviève, is there something between you and Gérard?”

Geneviève looked down, and after a few seconds, she nodded. “Yes, but I think he has feelings for you. He speaks to you with a special kind of warmth,” Geneviève mumbled. “And when we’re alone, he talks of you often.”

“Geneviève, I’ve known him for a long time. We’re old friends, nothing more.”

“He seems so concerned about you…”

“Geneviève, there’s nothing there. I promise. You and Gérard are involved?”

The other woman’s blush deepened to scarlet. “We’ve had a few dates.”

“Dates?” It wasn’t that Eva was envious. It was just that she couldn’t imagine when the other woman—or Joseph—found the time. “When?”

“We—we meet late at night sometimes. There’s a loft in the barn on the property where he stays. It’s very private; the family uses it only for storage. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s actually quite romantic.”

Eva just shook her head. She supposed she should be glad that one of them was finding happiness in the midst of the darkness, but somehow it just drove home the fact that Rémy was so far away.

“You’re not upset with me, are you?” Geneviève asked when Eva didn’t say anything. “I—I wanted to tell you, but Gérard asked me to keep it a secret.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m glad for you.” Eva forced a smile.

“Good.” Geneviève didn’t look convinced. “It’s nice to have someone to rely on in times like these.”

“Well, it’s good you have each other.”

“No, Eva, I meant you.” Geneviève waited for her to look up. “I meant it is nice to have you to rely on.”

This time, Eva’s smile was real. “I feel the same way, Geneviève. I’m very glad you’re here.”

They worked in silence for hours, and later that afternoon, when Geneviève asked if she could take a break, Eva nodded. “Are you going to see Faucon?”

She blushed and looked away. “I want to be at the place where we rendezvous, just in case. I don’t know how long it will take him to get to the forest and back, but if he is able to return home, he might need comfort.”