But when she rounded the corner into the dimly lit cave, she gasped, for it wasn’t just Michel standing there; there was another man, tall and swarthy, and they were both scowling and pointing pistols at her. Inès gave a little scream and turned to run.

“Inès, wait!” Michel barked, taking two quick steps toward her. He grabbed her arm and wrenched her back into the cave, where the other man, whose black overcoat was swept with snowflakes and whose left cheek was marked from eyebrow to chin with a deep scar, still stood with his gun leveled at her head.

Inès screamed again, and Michel tightened his grip. “For God’s sake, Inès, shut up!” He turned to the other man and said, “It’s okay. This is my wife.”

“Your wife,” the man repeated flatly, but it took another moment for him to lower his weapon. When he finally did, he continued to glare at Inès, his small black eyes slits of suspicion. “What is she doing here?”

But Inès was no longer listening, for she had seen what was behind the men. Three wine barrels, the kind that were used to age the single-vineyard wines before they were blended, sat with their heads pried off. It wasn’t wine inside the barrels, though; it was rifles, dozens of them. “Michel?” she breathed, unable to pry her eyes away.

“Now she’s seen us!” barked the man. “She knows. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Go,” Michel said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll take care of it?” Now the man’s fury was aimed at her husband. “You know Fernand doesn’t tolerate mistakes.”

“I’ll fix it.” Michel’s tone was stiff, controlled, and his nails dug into Inès’s arm so hard that she winced. “Now go.”

“Fernand will hear about this.” The man cast one more look of seething fury at Inès, then slipped from the cave, his footsteps somehow silent in the night, as if he were a ghost, someone who had never really been there at all. But when she finally dared to glance at Michel, she knew from his expression that she’d imagined none of it.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re doing?” he hissed.

“Do you want to let me go?”

Michel instantly released her, as if surprised to realize he’d still been holding on. Inès rubbed at the spot where his fingers had been, and an expression of guilt flitted over Michel’s face before it hardened into something colder.

“Inès, why are you here?”

“You’re going to act like I’m the one doing something wrong? What is this?”

“What is what?” His attempt to move in front of her, blocking her view of the rifle-loaded barrels, might have been laughable if the stakes didn’t feel so high.

“The guns, Michel. The barrels full of guns.”

His expression changed then, anger cracking into guilt, and then fear. “You can’t tell anyone, Inès.”

“Do you really think I would?”

“I don’t think you would betray me on purpose, but—”

“But what?” She cut him off, her frustration bubbling over. “But what, Michel? You don’t think this is a betrayal?”

“What are you talking about?”

“How could you put us in danger this way?”

“Ah, so you’re worried about yourself.” Michel’s voice had taken on a familiar frigid, superior edge, and it made Inès furious.

“How dare you act like I’m being selfish? If the Germans found these weapons, they’d arrest all of us, Michel, not just you. We’d be put to death, Theo and Céline, too! Do you understand the danger you’re putting us all in?”

“I’m not the one putting you in danger! Can’t you see that? It’s the damned Germans!”

“But we’re safe if we play by their rules!”

“Play by their rules? There are no rules! We have to fight back, and—”

“We just have to keep our heads down! You said so yourself!”

“Non!” Michel’s shout echoed through the caves, and he glanced around, suddenly conscious of the racket they were making. “Non,” he said more quietly. “We have tried that. For nearly two years now, Inès, we’ve played along. But I’m done.”

“So you’re doing what? Smuggling weapons? For whom?”

He ignored her questions. “Maybe we’re safe, but what about the ones we can’t protect? There are rumors, Inès. They’re coming for the Jews soon, just like they did in Germany. How can we stand by and let our friends and neighbors be taken away for nothing? For the mere fact of their birth?”

Something shifted in Inès as Michel averted his eyes. “Are you talking about Céline? You’re doing this to protect her?”

“I mean all the Jewish people in our community. Does it matter that I wish to protect Céline, too?”

She stared at the cache of weapons for a long time, trying to form the words her heart wanted to say. “Yes, it matters, Michel. It matters very much. Why is it more important to you to protect Céline than to protect me?”

“How can you ask that? You’re relatively safe because you’re Christian. She is increasingly defenseless.”