I saw the fusillade of bullets, the hazy drift of gunsmoke. The chips of stone flying as the church wall was hit. The drops of blood on blond hair.
“I was hit five times. I was able to crawl away.” Madame Rouffanche put the photograph gently back into my shaking hand. “But your friend—la belle Rose, and baby Charlotte—they were killed.”
I heard a rustle then, and I closed my eyes. It was the rustle of a summer dress rippled by warm wind. Rose was standing right behind me—if I turned, I would see her. I’d see her white dress stained red, I’d see the bullets that had gone through her soft throat and her sparkling eyes. I’d see her lying crumpled, legs twitching as she still tried with all her brave heart to flee. I’d see her child in her arms, the baby I’d never meet, the baby who would never grow up to be a big sister to mine. The baby she had named Charlotte.
Rose stood behind me, breathing. Only she wasn’t breathing. She’d been dead three years. She was gone, and all my hopes were lies.
CHAPTER 24
EVE
October 1915
She died in a hail of bullets. The details blared from smuggled newspapers, and everyone read them, sickened and fascinated. She was executed by firing squad in Belgium: a Red Cross nurse and English spy, instantly famous, heroine and martyr to all. Her name was everywhere.
Edith Cavell.
Not Violette Lameron. Edith Cavell was dead, but Violette, from what the Alice Network could glean, was still alive.
“Cavell looks like Violette,” Eve said, devouring the forbidden newspaper in private. Cavell had been arrested in August, but only now had the execution marched to its brutal conclusion. “It’s the eyes.” Most of the pictures of Edith Cavell were romanticized; she was drawn swooning before the row of guns, her photographs touched up to make her look fragile and feminine. But Eve thought the eyes were anything but fragile. Edith Cavell had helped smuggle hundreds of soldiers from Belgium—it was no job for the fragile. She had hard matter-of-fact eyes like Violette, like Lili, like Eve herself. Another fleur du mal, Eve thought.
“This is good. Not to be brutal, but Cavell’s death is nothing but good for Violette.” Lili was pacing the room—since Violette’s arrest nearly three weeks ago she’d been lying low, hiding out with Eve. Hiding didn’t suit her. She paced like a caged tigress, her small face tense. “The Germans are being so condemned for Cavell’s execution, they won’t dare march another female out before a firing squad.”
What are they doing to her instead? Eve wondered, full of dread. Torture wasn’t common among the Germans and their prisoners, even for spies. Interrogation, beatings, imprisonment, yes—and of course there was the looming fear of execution. But though you might be shot, you wouldn’t have your fingernails pulled out first; everyone in the network knew that.
Yet what if they had made an exception for Violette?
Eve didn’t voice that thought, knowing Lili was already in agony. So was Eve whenever she remembered Violette’s hands tending to her so gently, trying to warm the steel instruments. Without Violette, Eve would be stuck right now with René’s seed consuming her. Or she would be dead, because without Violette’s expertise she’d have been mad enough to try any potion, any poison that would do the job. Eve owed Violette so much.
“They’ll be questioning her.” Lili’s shoulders sagged as she paced. “Antoine says they have nothing definite. She wasn’t caught with papers. Her name was given up when a Brussels boy in the network got taken; all he knew was her name. So the Huns will question her, but if they dig for a weak spot on Violette, all they’ll find is bedrock.”
Eve imagined Violette sitting across a rickety table from a German interrogator, turning her head so the light flashed, impenetrable, off her spectacles. No, Violette would not be an easy subject for questioning. As long as they do not torture her.
“If I could do something,” Lili fumed. “Get out and start culling some new information—and there will be reports to collect.” Her voice was steely. “I will not lose anyone else to the Huns. I’d rather be stood against a wall and shot myself than lose one more.”
“Don’t be foolish.” Eve found herself adopting Violette’s bossy sternness, taking her wayward leader in hand since their spectacled lieutenant wasn’t here to do it. “Let me see what I can f-find out at Le Lethe.”