I felt Zee watching me before I saw him. I stood at the window, gazing out at Central Park. Waiting to hear what he had to say. Knowing part of it already.

“Old Cat dead,” he finally rasped. “Took care of it.”

I had thought he would. I searched myself for regret, and found none. “Did she suffer?”

Zee climbed onto the wide sill. “Not in sleep.”

“And the one who shot her? Who killed Samuel and Lizbet? Ernie?”

An odd glint entered his eyes when I mentioned Ernie’s name, but he shrugged and said, “Different men, different cities. Hired like thugs. Got the scent. Tomorrow, I cut them.”

Cut them, kill them. I had time to think about that, and decide whether there should be another kind of justice. Human laws, human wheels. Evidence could be planted. Police tipped off.

I shot him a hard look. “And the rest of it? You could have warned me in time to save lives.”

He dug his claws into wood beneath him. I noticed other gouge marks, older and just as deep. “Old mother needed you. Needed you in order to…change. Be better. Stronger. Pivotal. No you around, she go on. Never look back. Black Cat get strong and stronger. Children die early. More children after that.”

“She would have done something,” I protested, though a small part of me wondered if that was true. “She would have fought to help those kids.”

“No,” Zee whispered, with utter certainty. “Would have been different. Colder, harder. No good mother. No heart. Seen it happen. Again, again.” He rested a claw upon my hand. “You got heart. Heart from your mother, because your grandmother got heart. Because you shook up her heart. Shook her hard. Made her regret. Regret is sweet if it burns you right.”

“So you’re saying…. all this was to make me go back. To help my grandmother become a better person.” I stared at him. “But she didn’t even remember me. Later, the first time I met her. We were strangers.”

Zee made a slashing motion across his brow. “Waited until lessons took, then cut you out. Better that way. No good remembering future. No good.”

I wanted to argue with that, but stopped myself. If I had met my grandchild while hardly out of my teens, it would have messed me up. It would have been all I thought of. No good remembering the future. Because it stole from the present.

I wrapped my arm around his hard shoulders, and rested my chin on top of his head. I could hear Grant’s cane clicking in the other room, coming closer.

“But we failed,” I said softly, staring at the glittering city lights. “Those kids died.”

Zee held up his clawed hand, splitting his long fingers like a Vulcan from Star Trek. “Live long and prosper.”

I stifled a sharp cough of stunned, incredulous laughter. But mostly, I just wanted to weep. Grant peered into the room. “You okay?”

“No,” I said. “There’s been a lot of death.”

“Lot more you’re not telling me. If I checked your right hand, what would I see?”

I did not want to look. “More of your future cyborg woman.”

“And the rest?”

“I couldn’t save the people I was supposed to.”

Grant leaned against the doorway, studying me. “You’re talking about those kids whom Winifred knew, and who were…targeted. Samuel, Lizbet.”

“Ernie,” I whispered, aching.

Grant frowned. “You feel so much grief when you say his name. I can see it.”

“He’s dead,” I blurted out, wondering why he should look so confused—and then remembered that Grant did not know. I had not told him yet, about going back in time. Seeing those…names…as children. Saving Ernie, at least for a moment. In this time, Ernie had been dead for days now, in my arms.

Unless he was not dead.

“Grant,” I said slowly. “How did we get here? How were we warned to find Winifred?”

His frown deepened. “There was a letter, Maxine.”

The following week in Seattle, I picked Ernie Bernstein up from the airport. It was a rare day, sunny and warm, and I was the only person wearing jeans and a turtleneck. I did not feel the heat.

I saw him coming out of customs: a portly man, shorter than me, his hair silver and tufted. But his eyes were the same. I remembered those eyes.

He stopped when he saw me. Stood stock-still, staring. Drinking me in. I walked up to him, and smiled. Not bothering to hide the fine burn of tears in my eyes.

“I listened,” he said hoarsely. “Even when Winifred called me out of the blue and said I needed to find you, and go in person. Even when she mailed me that scrap of skin and said the Black Cat was back. I waited, and did as you asked.”

Time was a funny thing. I had assumed nothing could change, but it had. I could not explain the paradox that created. Only that moments counted. That it was possible—it was possible, against all odds—to make a difference.

“You did good,” I said.

“I trusted magic,” Ernie replied, with a tremulous smile. “But now I’m an old man, and you’re still the same. I can only hope…I can only hope that Jean is doing just as well.”

I hesitated. He saw the answer in my eyes, and bowed his head.

“Oh,” he whispered, a little boy all over again, pained and grieving. “I never thanked you. Either of you. I regretted that, always. So I watched for you both. All these years, everywhere I went. I watched for your faces.”

“I was hoping you would find me,” I said.

He leaned in, and kissed me shyly on the cheek. “It was only a matter of time.”

ETCHED IN SILVER

(An Otherworld Novella)

Yasmine Galenorn

Chapter 1

The room was a shade darker than night as I pushed my way through the haze of pungent smoke, trying not to cough. The fragrance of stale wine and decaying lotus blossoms filled the air, cloying and overripe. Noise echoed through the dimly lit room, a cacophony of whispers and laughter, drunken singing and arguments from the gambling tables all rolling into one to give me a supremely bad headache. Yeah, the Collequia was jumping and so were my nerves. I’d had a very long, very bad day, and it wasn’t over yet. Normally, I came here to hang out and play, but tonight was all business.

The hardcore opium eaters were out in full array. My nose twitched. Not only did they smell—think a week’s unwashed sweat and grime—but they were looking for nookie. Check that. They were looking for money, and they’d earn it by giving a woman—or a man—anything she or he wanted. Considering their habits, they’d probably toss in a few extra gifts for free. Disease, lice, fleas…all lovely little bundles of joy that I wasn’t interested in acquiring.

The pretty boys crowded around their tables in tight-knit groups, sucking on hookahs, gossiping, eyeing each new person who crossed the door. Oh yeah, they were hungry for money. Opium was a commodity, a pricey one, spurred on by our illustrious queen’s habit, and she set the price point for distributors throughout the city. Selling sex was an easy way to score one more round.

Sometimes I wondered what drew me back to this club time and again, but to be fair, not everybody here was out for the drugs. I’d met a number of friends and lovers here.

I scanned the room, looking for any signs of my quarry. Roche, one of the Veiled Fae, was wanted for rape and murder. He also happened to be a member of the Guard Des’Estar. Or at least he’d been a member till he’d gone bad. Very bad.