The plan would take time, but time had ever been a finite resource. They had less of it now that a full year had passed, trading one autumn for another. Their goal of escape remained evergreen no matter the season. In the name of that goal, they had done many things. One of the most important had been Halston getting Eleanor's privileges upgraded, which had led them to where they were now, in one of the back pastures on a hunt.

This particular pasture was near a narrow wood, and the traces of their quarry led into the trees. She kept to his right, as always, the side that he could see her out of. Like him, she had a newer Lee-Enfield rifle pointed down at the fallow field they were steadily coursing over. Like him, she also had an M1911 holstered under her unbuttoned coat. One weapon for distance, and another for close quarters. Those in the Special Operations Executive swore by the Colts, so Archie had requisitioned some in the name of training his people. A few of those allowed to train were like Eleanor — special.

Although her short stature had made the handling of most weapons rather awkward for her, she had learnt to get by. Halston had done the same; his one good eye meant some trouble with iron sights, but he had adapted to his situation as best could be managed. Sandhurst had taught him invaluable things, as had his short time in the Army. Not all of his fellow countrymen had been lucky enough to have such training. If the Jerries ever touched British land, every man, woman, and child here would be swept up in the wave of battle that followed. War wouldn't spare the weak or infirm.

Self-protection had become vitally important to those of the Cloakroom for another reason, though: those with secrets had to fight to keep them. Fighting was precisely what Halston and Eleanor were learning to do right now.

The mock battles he had fought before were nothing compared to the ones he had here. For one thing, he shot at living targets, like the one he had just sighted darting through the trees. Both he and Eleanor raised their rifles, though she was a touch slower with hers, and they traced the man in grey as he darted into the shadows.

Eleanor muttered something that might have been rather foul if Halston had heard it fully.

He gave a grin between breaths. Unlike some of the other men, her interest in firearms had never dismayed him. Most girls he had known had either found guns distasteful, or had been encouraged to do so. She had never once hesitated around weapons — she had mentioned that her father was fond of hunting and skeet shooting, the latter of which sounded like a distant cousin to sporting clays. Her familiarity with firearms was more than could be said for some of the other researchers.

The two of them had finally penetrated the edge of the wood. Birds burst through boughs above, wings whirring. Cloudy sunlight barely shone through the trees, and the deep shadows furthered the chill in crisp air that smelled of dark decay. They avoided fallen branches as they moved in; stepping on those would be as good as calling out their positions.

Grey flashed ahead, and Halston took aim. The target disappeared between two massive boles. This time, Halston was the one muttering foul things, if only in his head. Neither of them could risk talking now, so they didn't. This was their twenty-fifth hunt, and the twelfth that they had done alone together. Several of the group hunts had been held during overnight camps. Those had been during the late spring and early summer when the moon had been high and full, as torches or firelight would make the estate a target for the Luftwaffe. The daylight hunts like this were his favorite, for he got to be by her side with little chance of anyone watching. The target didn't count.

Eleanor gave him several hand signals:

Ahead, to the left, under cover.

The target had sought a poor shelter below a half-fallen tree. Its roots emerged out of the earth like the tentacles of some weird sea creature trying desperately to grasp the sea, whilst its upper half hung on the sagging branches of its neighbors. Halston had gone beneath it only once, and the cracks and groans of the tree had sounded a warning of doom to him then.

She threw him another signal. I'll cover.

The kill was being offered to him. Only fair. She had got one half an hour before, and he desperately needed to shoot something after a long and tiresome week. He signaled back his acceptance, then circled round to the other side of the tree. His progress slowed as he dipped into a crouching walk. He glanced back as he'd been taught to do — only a fool never checked the position of his partner. However well matched they might be didn't matter more than safety. She crept towards the back of the tree, no doubt intending to watch the target's only way out to the right.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He glanced back a second time before he reached the opening on the left side. A few more steps would reveal him to the target. He signaled for a distraction.

She provided one, pitching a rock into a clump of leaves.

The target exploded into the open in front of Halston.

Mouth dry, heart pounding, he aimed again. Followed the target with his sights. Picked the man's likeliest path. Aimed ahead. Shoved the bolt forward, then down. Took a steadying breath. Squeezed the trigger. Fired.

The man in grey staggered. He stretched to his full height, and threw his head back to face the sky. Then he collapsed soundlessly to the earth.

Halston hurried over. He might need to fire a second time. The man turned at his approach, bloody lips whispering something that couldn't be heard. His body dissolved into a thousand points of light that fell and drifted like dust motes. Halston turned to Eleanor. She was still in the same spot by the tree, only now she was ejecting live rounds from her Lee-Enfield, shoving the bullets into her coat pocket.

He did the same, then dry fired at the ground once, twice, thrice. One could never be too safe regarding firearms. When certain the rifle had been emptied, he leant it against the tree. Removing his wax earplugs, he spoke. "Always makes me feel the coward, shooting him through the back."

Having no earplugs to remove, she strolled over to him; any damage that occurred to her ears would reverse itself seconds later. Her body seemed to consider such a thing a minor inconvenience, so she rarely needed to eat very soon afterward. "Sometimes the coward's shot is the only one you can take," she said, setting her rifle next to his. "Besides, Paxton doesn't mind — or at least his illusions don't."

"Spoken like a true veteran, darling." He circled his arms around her. "That part about the coward's shot, not the rest."

She settled against his chest, embracing him back. "A true veteran? You might become exactly that if this war goes on long enough."

"The Allies would be in rather dire straits if they had to put a half-blind man on the front lines. By that point, they might make you go with me. And a good little soldier you'd make, too."

Her face tilted up to him, stippled by sunlight and shadows. She said nothing, only stared, as if she were trying to memorize every line and curve of his face. Her fingers inscribed idle shapes on his back through his clothes, and he brought up a hand to tease the ends of her hair, which she'd done up in the victory rolls that many women seemed to be wearing of late. He'd seen her hair in its natural straightness only once, after a rain shower had caught them unaware during a spring hunt, and he'd longed to run his hands through it then.

She leant on tiptoes towards him. "I was going to be a nurse, not a soldier."

"A nurse? Why in heaven's name should an heiress want to be a nurse?"

"For the war." A little higher she went now. "And I'd never been one before, as far as I remember."

Hearing of her past always got his attention, but she had never mentioned her reasoning for being here. He stopped playing with her hair. "That's why you came to Britain? To help in the war?" he said. "It wasn't even yours when you got here."

"I'd liked the last big war, so I thought I might like this one, too."

He laughed, then kissed her forehead. "My sweetheart's mad for history."

"Oh, I'm always mad for things I'm part of."

He gathered her hair into his hand, crushing it as he cupped the back of her skull. It'd be mussed when they were through, but she could claim she fell when they got back to Wickerwill. She always did. "Is that so?" he said.

"It's why I'm mad for you," she said, and kissed his chin.

That was all she did to him, and thank the stars for that. They couldn't risk much else. Not now, not yet. After they were free of this place. Only after.

The two of them broke apart, then carried their guns with them to the country house. Neither of them spoke, for they both enjoyed the silence that only a good companion could bring. But this silence was also one that made of for the lack of it that would greet them once the rooms of Wickerwill closed around them.

Her privileges had not come without cost.

The biggest price had been that of trust. Without it, they could not escape. In the name of trust, both Halston and Eleanor had learnt to ignore the darker things that had begun in the Cloakroom. No, it was more accurate to say that those things had come into the light. It was a certainty that they had existed for a long time, those terrible things, but only now had those responsible felt safe in doing them openly.

And to gain trust, Halston and Eleanor had to turn aside and let those cruel experiments happen.

Those very experiments had added headstones to the cemetery of the estate's old churchyard, which they passed by on their way through the pasture. Halston didn't let his gaze linger on the plain, wooden coffin sitting beside the half-dug grave. There was no point in lingering — unless he could unmake the past, he could not unmake the dead.

All he did was stiffen his shoulders as they passed by the graves, some very old and some very new. She touched his wrist, reminding him that they could say nothing, do nothing. Not now, not yet. That didn't keep his guilt at bay. His complicity. He was letting this go on, all because he had his own neck in the noose. Some brave soldier he would've made. A true officer and a gentleman he was, ducking down as the bullets burned by.

"It's wrong," he said, when the ringing of the shovels on hard-packed dirt and the swearing of the gravediggers was behind them. "It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong."

Her fingers sought his wrist again, and this time slipped down to weave with his. "We can't make things right," she said, "but we can make them even."

The darkness of her voice promised dark things. He couldn't find it in himself to protest them. What was reaped must be sown, and the twisted seeds that had been cast in the earth of this place would bear terrible fruit.