“C’est bon. I’ll be right there.” She could hear heavy footsteps on the stairs; Céline had ditched her stylish mules months ago, when the Marne was emptied of its men, and now wore work boots nearly every day. She was stronger than Inès, and more sure of herself, and Inès often felt like an inexperienced little girl next to her, though they were only a year apart.

Inès tried to pitch in, too, but she didn’t have the same knack for it that Céline did, and she was often left in the dust—literally. Inès had no palate for tasting, though she tried; no skill for the bottling of blended wines; and no finesse for the racking of bottles, which had to be done with a sure hand. She suspected that the others thought she was just lazy, but the truth was, she was hesitant and unsure, and each time she broke a bottle, she lost a bit more confidence. She was useless.

The irony was that not so long ago, that’s exactly how Michel had wanted her to be. When he had proposed marriage to her a year and a half earlier, he had told her he would take care of her, that he didn’t want her lifting a finger.

“But you see, I’m happy to help out,” she had tried to explain.

“It’s my responsibility to take care of you now,” Michel had said, cupping her chin gently with a calloused hand and looking into her eyes. “You won’t have to work.”

“But—”

“Please, my dear,” he had interrupted. “My father never had to ask my mother to bother herself with the champagne production, and I don’t want to ask you to, either. You’ll be the lady of the house now.”

But then war had been declared that September, and the draft had stolen their workers. Michel had slowly changed his tune, at first asking her to do small tasks with mumbled apologies. She made sure to let him know at every opportunity that it was perfectly all right, and that she truly wanted to pitch in. But as the autumn dragged into winter and the labor shortage began to take a toll on their production schedule, he had implored her to take on more and more responsibilities. She scrambled to do everything he wanted, but there was often a learning curve, and as the months wore on, she could feel the heat of his deepening disappointment in her.

She pasted on a smile as Céline rounded the corner now. Even in faded trousers and muddy boots, Céline was beautiful, which annoyed Inès, though she knew that was irrational. But then Inès looked more closely at the other woman, and even in the darkness, she could see that Céline’s eyes were rimmed in red.

“Are you all right?” Inès asked.

Céline immediately ducked her head, hiding her face behind a curtain of long brown hair. “Oh yes, just fine.”

“But you’ve been crying.” Inès knew she was being tactless, but it simply didn’t seem fair for Céline to pretend that everything was normal when clearly, above their heads, it was all falling apart. Then again, in the year since Inès had married Michel, the two women had never really become friends, though Inès had tried. Céline was quiet and serious, always tromping around with a frown on her face, while Inès did her best to look on the bright side. A month after Inès had arrived at the Maison Chauveau, she’d overheard Céline whispering to Theo that Inès’s constant optimism grated on her because it was so unrealistic. After that, Inès had at least understood the exasperated looks Céline sometimes cast her way.

Céline drew a shuddering breath. “Yes, well, I’m worried about my family, Inès.”

“Oh.” Inès was temporarily at a loss. “Well, I imagine they’re all right. I’m sure the Germans aren’t harming civilians.”

Céline made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Inès, don’t you remember that my family is Jewish?”

“Well, yes, of course.” The truth was that Inès didn’t think about it much. It had come up in conversation a few times over the past few months, when there were news reports of Jewish roundups in Germany. Céline’s father and his family were Jews, but Inès knew that Céline’s mother—who had died two years earlier—had been Catholic, and that Céline hadn’t been raised to be particularly religious at all. “But you mustn’t worry. This is still France, after all.”

Céline was silent for long enough that Inès thought perhaps she had no reply. “Do you really think that will matter when the Germans have control of things?”

Inès bit her lip. Céline didn’t have to look at every situation as if it were the end of the world. “There’s no word of anything happening to Jews here,” she said confidently. “You’ll see. It will be fine.”

“Right.” Céline turned away without another word. Inès watched as she bent, lifted a crate of twenty-eights from the floor, and trudged down the tunnel toward the hidden cavern.

Inès grabbed a crate of her own and hurried after her, her back aching in protest, her underused biceps burning. “You’re from near Dijon, though, right?”

“Yes, just to the south, Nuits-Saint-Georges.”

“Well, then, your father and your grandparents are much farther from the Germans than we are, yes?” Inès knew that Dijon was some three hundred kilometers south of Champagne. “They’re probably already heading south.” Michel had explained that hundreds of thousands of refugees were clogging the roads as the Germans approached.