Her steps echoed as she moved deeper into the cool, chalky caves. There were the 1939s and the 1940s, still aging on the lees, the first two vintages since war had been declared. There were gaps where the older wines—the thirty-sixes, the blanc de blanc Theo had experimented with in 1938—should have been, but they’d been hidden or requisitioned by the Germans long ago. Céline knew the winding, twisting, mysterious cellars like the back of her own hand, but sometimes these days, all the empty spots made her feel as if she had lost her way.

“Bonjour!” An unfamiliar man’s voice boomed down into the cellars from the direction of the stairs, and Céline froze. His accent was unmistakably German. “Hello, who is down there?”

Her blood ran cold. She quickly extinguished her lamp, her heart thudding.

“Do you think I’m a fool?” The man’s deep voice echoed in the caverns. “You’ve just put your light out. I can see exactly where you are.” His voice was smooth, even with the guttural consonants, his tone too casual.

Céline’s mind raced. The cellars went on forever, twisting deeper into the earth beneath Ville-Dommange, but if he wanted to, he could follow the sound of her footsteps, the flash of the light she would eventually need to relight to find her way. There was nowhere to hide now that he knew she was here. But what did he want?

“I am going to give you sixty seconds,” the German said. “And if you don’t come up, I will begin shooting.”

“No, wait, don’t!” Céline called, hating the way the cave walls magnified the fear in her voice. She was trapped. “Please. I’m coming. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

She didn’t relight the lamp for fear that it would make her an easier target. In the darkness, she hurried toward the stairs, stumbling twice, and ascended into the bright morning.

“Well, well,” the German said with a chuckle. “It’s you.”

When they finally stood face-to-face, Céline realized she recognized him, too. It was the officer who had supervised the younger men on the first day the Germans had pillaged Ville-Dommange, the one with the broad shoulders, narrow mustache, and dark, beady eyes. But she barely glanced at his face; she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his pistol, which he held casually in his right hand, the barrel even with her heart. She had never had a gun pointed directly at her before.

“Aren’t you going to say something?” the man asked, venom spiking the amusement in his tone. “I thought the French were supposed to be polite. Don’t you say ‘bonjour’ even when you meet a stranger on the street? And we are not even strangers, are we? We are old friends.”

“B-bonjour,” Céline stammered, still staring at the gun.

“Céline, is that right?” he asked smoothly. “Or would it be more proper to call you Madame Laurent?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice small. “I mean, yes, that is me. Madame Laurent.”

“You’re a nervous little thing, aren’t you?”

“You—you are holding a gun on me.”

He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound; it was ominous, threatening. Nonetheless, he lowered the weapon, but he didn’t holster it. “Now,” he said, the facade of mirth disappearing as abruptly as it had arrived. “What were you doing? It is suspicious enough that a woman would be in the cellars by herself with the men away, but you extinguished your light as soon as you heard me call out. Why? What are you up to? You are hiding something?”

“No, nothing.” Céline clasped her hands. “I promise. I just—you startled me.”

“I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked what you were doing in the caves.”

“I—I was lonely.”

“Lonely?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, sir,” he corrected. “You will address me with the proper respect.”

“Yes, sir,” she said quickly.

“Now. Explain yourself. You were lonely? What does that have to do with anything?”

She could only tell the truth. “I was missing my family, you see. My father, he has worked at a vineyard in Burgundy my whole life. He makes—made—wine, and sometimes, when I’m feeling most alone—”

“What is your point?” The German cut her off, and she realized she’d been babbling.

“I feel close to him in the caves. They remind me of where I come from, and I’m not sure I’ll ever see that home again.”

The German studied her, his eyes dark with something unsettling. At last he holstered his pistol, and she felt her shoulders sag in relief. “Being alone in the cellars, especially for a woman, is suspicious. Do you know there are people doing things down there, things to undermine the führer? Just last week, we came upon a man printing leaflets in his cellar in A?. Do you know what happened to him?”

Céline shook her head, too afraid to guess.

When the German grinned, his teeth looked too sharp for a mere man; they belonged on a predator in the wild. He held her gaze as he raised the thumb and index finger of his right hand, mimicking a gun as he pointed at her. “We shot him dead, madame. If I ever catch you alone in the cellars—”

“I understand. Sir.”

He didn’t move, didn’t break the oppressive eye contact between them. Instead, he continued to stare as his lips curled. “You mentioned your father,” he said. “He’s a Jew, yes?”