The Warlock had called Cris earlier in the morning to set up the details of what their meeting today would entail. After the call, the rest of the day up until this point had been spent doing some last minute reading, fretting and preparation. Mainly because she was nervous, and trying to soothe the nerves that had frayed slowly. So by the time that the diffused sunlight crawled across the plants in her green house, she felt confident. Ready. She was merely waiting now, in the warmth of the greenhouse, amid the scents of herbs, dirt and the faint scent of cigarettes.

Greenhouses did nothing for stealth. He couldn't exactly show up unexpected. His own battle with anxiety was nothing similar to Zynn's, but had to do with what he would do after he set foot down on the other side. He hadn't let himself think much about it.

Dressed for travel, with his coat on over a thin white shirt. Every sling on his gear was filled with its corresponding knife and there were two blades fitted securely to his left hip. He had shaved recently, trimming two days worth of stubble down to only one.

Scarred knuckles curled to a fist, he rapped a staccato rhythm against one of the metal slats of the greenhouse and let himself inside the earthy humidity.

The sound of knuckles kissing the outside of her greenhouse is what dragged her from the land of herbs and dirt, to the present. Nervousness spiked briefly, and she quashed it with quick efficiency. Her eyes drifted towards the door of her greenhouse, seeking out the form of the Nephilim. Once they found him, a smile came. Not as easily as she hoped, but it was there. "I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind getting there Via Zynn Express." The words were mused softly, a touch of tease laced her voice.

It was a familiar scent. Wet and warm and dirty. The taste of soil invaded his nose and stayed on his tongue. "Why would I? Honestly, who else do I have to turn to with a matter like this?"

"I actually don't have an answer for that." He got a half grin from her. Then she turned, and headed towards the space she'd cleared for the Portal.

"Exactly. There's hardly any basis for a remark like that. I respect your concern, Zynnara." He headed further into the greenhouse, casting his gaze around to the bits of greenery that he could discern. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She came to a stop slowly, and turned around to face him. Her eyes traveled up to his face, and a deep breath was drawn in and held for a brief moment. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Fingertips slid together, smearing a waxy substance from the leaf he'd just touched. He looked over, offering a quirk of his mouth. "I am."

She closed the distance between them, and leaned up to press a faint kiss to his cheek. It was done to show gratitude. For lots of things. When she pulled back, she flashed him a dazzlingly bright smile. "I expect a call from you when you get back, so we can make plans for that drink you'll owe me. And I hope that what ever you're doing goes well." If she wasn't careful, her chatter and well wishes may turn into an endless babble if she isn't redirected.

Whatever he had touched had irritated his skin. Absently, he ran the nail of his middle finger down the callus on his thumb. Her advance and upward lean froze him, and when she drew back from her kiss, he was frowning darkly enough to match her smile. He didn't understand what that was for. Gratitude aside, it seemed like she was expecting to never see him again. "So do I. I've very little plans and I've nearly talked myself out of it three times."

Well. If she messed up. That'd be true. When it came down to everything, it was just her being her. Her hands pressed against her thighs, and ran over her shorts. "Then I guess I better'd get started. Before you do actually talk yourself out of it. " With that said, she moved towards the the things she'd set out, and started to collect what she needed.

When he looked down at his hand, the inside of his thumb was worried red from his scratching. The weight of her concentration and concern was starting to feel heavy on his own shoulders. "You need only worry about opening the Portal. I can take care of the rest. I've a place in mind where I will come out."

"I know." Her attention ticked towards him. Then it rolled back to what she was setting up. Runes were scrawled, and a few more nudges and messing around had things set up as well as she could. She moved to stand. "Readyready?" She bounced slightly on the balls of her feet.

He pressed his lips together. She did not want to get it wrong, and he knew that. Opening a rift and maintaining a pathway through two separate dimensions of existence was not a light thing to take on. But she did not need to keep asking him that. "Yes, Zynnara, I'm ready. Relax. You had to learn how to do this at some point. It might as well be now. Yes?"

It was then, that she realized that she'd been nervously fidgeting with almost everything she could. Before she responded, she closed her eyes, and took another deep breath. As she sighed, she let all her anxiety leave with the breath. "Yeah. Might as well be now. I just don't-" She caught herself, and shook her hands. "I'm going to be quiet, and get things started. Like I should be."

With that said, her attention turned back to the small area she had prepared, and a small sharp inhale could be heard, before she closed her eyes, and started to focus on finding the thrum of magic that ran through her. Once it was found, she pulled and tugged at it. The rest wasn't too hard, given that she'd set everything up properly. Within seconds, her magic was guided to the unfinished runes she'd scrawled, giving them the spark they needed to bring the Portal into being.

Energy flared, and crackled. Above the runes, the air began to shimmer, and flicker, reflecting a wide variety of colors. Well. On the plus side, it looked proper. She'd know soon enough.

He had watched Salome set up countless one-use Portals. Bianca had done so with the ease of an exhale, without care or effort. It was nearly unsettling to watch someone fret over it, but she had never done this before, and she was only feeling the pressure of making an error. His confidence in her did not allow him to think he would end up in Limbo or torn limb from limb on his way to Hell.

He stepped away from the plants and stood at her left, gaze kept on the forming Portal before them. "Shall I call you once I arrive?" Nearly one year ago, he'd had a similar conversation.

She made sure that everything was secure. Right before she turned to answer him. "It'd help me ease my mind if you did. I'd appreciate knowing that you got through safely. I'll assume that if you don't call me by tonight that you got lost. But." Her eyes rolled towards the Portal, then back to him. "I'm certain I'll be getting your call soon."

"Travel by Portal is about a millisecond longer than instantaneous. You've opened the door. Now, it is up to me to complete the journey." He had his phone, he was certain of it. She would not be the first one he called, but he didn't need to tell her that.

Already, an image was forming in his mind. Thirteen stone steps leading down from a narrow New York street to a steel door. The door opened into a broad room. Wider than it was long. The stone floor was grey, covered in places by old, dirty area rugs. A fat armchair, a ragged couch, a pale wood coffee table. A fire leaping merrily over a log. A kitchen straight ahead marked by the collection of linoleum tile fixed to stone. A door on the west wall led to a modest bedroom taken up almost completely by a naked mattress. "You'll have it soon," he said.

"Very well." The smile she gave him was wide, almost infectious. She was still brimming with various emotions, and had more bubbling to the surface. The silence that followed was filled with her contemplating saying something else. But instead, she lapsed into silence, and merely waited.

Wide and infectious if he looked. But he didn't. Instead, with tension around his mouth and a stern set to his shoulders, he stepped forward. When he breached the surface of the Portal, his world shone blue and white and he felt a great suction across every inch of his body. Drawing, pulling, dragging him through.

One moment his dark shape wavered behind the liquid gleam of the Portal. The next, he was gone.

One moment he was there. Still tangible. The next he was gone. Once that sank in, her hand was moving to find her back pocket, and the phone tucked away into it. She'd spend the time waiting for him to call trying not to fret more than she already was.



(Thank you, Zynn!)

"What are you?" the boy asked, uncertain. The baguette in his small hand wavered.

Cris pressed his lips together a moment. "That's a bit difficult to explain."

"Are you here to rob me?"

"No."

"Are you a ghost?"

"Angel's mercy, no."

"Then how come I can see you?"

He blinked, surprise winging dark brows up from their scowl. "I beg your pardon?" The Mark on his arm had not yet ceased feeling warm. "How is it that you're able to see at all?"

The boy frowned, dropping the baguette. "It's just something I can do. I've always been able to do it. Ever since I went blind."

Cris curled his fingertips into his palms, slowly lowering his hands to rest at his sides. He had no desire to frighten the child any more than he already had. Even putting away his stele seemed like too sudden a movement. "You were not always so?"

The boy shook his head. "Mm, mm. I got sick two years ago. Real sick. Sick enough that I wasn't supposed to get better. Mom tried everything. Dad left."

Abruptly, the boy seemed to notice he was not only rambling, but doing so to a stranger about things he would rather keep to himself. His petulant frown returned. Once more he brandished the baguette.

"If you're not a ghost, what are you? How did you get in? I locked the door myself."

Cris recalled the thuds. "Do you mean that you pulled the door tightly closed behind you and made sure that it was well wedged into the frame?"

The boy's fingers dimpled the stale baguette.

"Irrelevant as it is to this discussion, that door does not have any locks. It didn't for the time that I lived here, and it seems that has not changed."

"So you know about the locks. Big deal. That still doesn't tell me anything."

He tightened his hand around the stele. "As I've said, it's difficult to explain. All I would like is to leave."

The boy waved the baguette, licking his lips. Either from hunger or anxiety, he could not decide which.

"My name is Cris," he said, resigned. "I am not a ghost. I am Nephilim."

The boy was silent, emotions animating his face. Surprise, recognition, confusion, uncertainty. The baguette rose and fell inches at a time. "The tattoos," he said in a way that suggested he had seen them before. Cris nodded. The boy lowered the bread. "Jem."

Cris tilted his head. "Short for?James?"

"Jeremiah. But no one calls me that anymore."

"Ah. Mine is short for Crispin."

Jem sputtered. "Crispin?"

"And what exactly is amusing about that?"

"Do people ever ask you if you're crispy?" Then, he burst into laughter. The tension in the room snapped. Cris rolled his eyes.

"You're hysterical for your age, Jem."

The boy hugged the bread to his body as he laughed. It was something the cave of an underground apartment had no doubt been missing.

"How long have you been here?"

Jem felt his way to the ground once again and began to gather bruised fruit and vegetables into his precise, avian grasp. "Since winter."

He suppressed a wince. "That must have been cold?"

"Beats sleeping outside." Unlike before, the boy was not intent on continuing. Cris took two, silent, steps forward and knelt, collecting a potato that wept a brown juice on his fingers. Tension pulled his brows together. He looked up at Jem, watching him inspect every aging bit of food as if they were pieces of gold.

"How long have you lived like this?"

"Since winter." Jem snatched the potato away from him. "What happened to your mouth?"

Cris touched the tip of his tongue to the inside of his lower lip, tasting the salty crust of the scab holding the split together. "I?ran into an old friend of mine."

"With your face?"

He snorted. "In a way. Yes."

"Uh huh." They met each other's gaze. Gold green for opaque white. Somehow, the milky disks of Jem's eyes held a weight to them. But whatever he had seen was not important enough to keep attention. Jem refocused his fish-eyes back down to the floor, sniffing at a smear on the floor. "You can go. By the way. You're a Shadowhunter. You've got places to go."

Cris locked every query that sprang to mind behind an iron door, intent on never opening it. The Sight was something that one had at birth. The illness that Jem survived must have triggered it, sloughed off the mundane veil to leave the Shadow World exposed. Perhaps he had been much closer to death than he realized.

And Shadowhunter occupation was not at all uncommon in this city like it was in Rhy'Din. Both points were easily, if not thoroughly, explained. He need not ask anything if he truly did not want to.

And he didn't.

Rising, Cris removed his wallet from a pocket in his gear and cut the small stack of varying dollar bills in half. He folded them, and held them out to the boy. "Take this. Yes? Perhaps you could buy yourself something hot to eat."

Jem looked up, then hugged the food in his arms so tightly he murdered a tomato. "I don't need your help?"

Cris lowered his hand. A moment later, he nodded and stepped around Jem. The boy did not turn to look at him, even as he took hold of the door and pulled it open. Steel gave a screechy groan of protest. He paused on the threshold, with the beam of opaque light shining down on him from the stairwell leading up to the street.

"Good luck, Jeremiah." A short flick of his wrist, he could have been reaching for the edge of the door, but before he pulled it closed the shell of folded money he'd been holding fluttered to rest atop a soggy package of meat.

He left the boy to his food and on his way up the stairs, pulled his phone from his coat.

A simultaneous weight and weightlessness had settled in his heart the moment he'd set foot on the Q train. Commuters stuffed the car with their heat and their ire. He kept his hands tucked tightly into his coat pockets and held up one of several windows with his back, hip tucked into the nearest seat to avoid being jostled by the imbalance of mundane bodies around him.

Ten minutes later, stepping outside of the subway tunnel's oppression, he supposed that at that very moment, were he to set foot in Alicante, he would feel the same. He breathed deep the noxious perfume of exhaust, smoke and sauce and exhaled peaceful nostalgia. The city's musical backdrop of car horns and sirens, shouting and the pop-slap of distant gunfire mingled and became white noise. Red paper lanterns decorated the sky above a piece of Canal street, marking it as the border to Chinatown.

For the first time in years, an excitement suffused him, a jittery feeling that his body did not know what to do with. Between two and five, street vendors were clogged with housewives looking for the best deal on their family's dinner and tourists who had not yet discovered the best time to shop for their souvenirs. For the most part, from what he could see, every head was black and at least four inches shorter than he knew himself to be.

Putting his restlessness to use, he fell into a swiftly cutting pace and when the first hints of seared meat and rapidly shouted Cantonese reached him, he smiled.

He did not so much mind the press of people around him this time. They kept themselves moving, never lingering too long in the middle of the street unless they were to snap a picture. Multicolored, vertical signs were attached to the faces of the surrounding buildings, simplified hanzi proclaiming the names of shops, sale prices and directions to locations further inside the neighborhood. He read them with the ease that he did English and it stroked his pride that his ability to do so was in no way connected to the Mark on the inside of his right arm.

The flow of street traffic urged him away from the curb, where cars valiantly fought the narrow passage for the few minutes it would save them on their overall journey. Close enough the stone walls they scratched the leather of his coat, he turned from Canal onto Mott.

On a street predominantly stuffed with restaurants, the specific establishment he was looking for blended seamlessly into the architecture. Fire escapes climbed up from awnings to rooftops like wrought iron vines above its entrance. A simple glamour draped the front stoop like a sheath of gauze fluttering in the wind. In the blink of an eye, quicker than it took for him to focus his attention, his Sight peeled away the facade of a decrepit newsstand.

Wood stained a dark, cherry red sported golden letters proclaiming the restaurant's name as Tiger Lily. A paper screen stood folded into a V inside the window, blocking the view inside. To the window's left, a door was propped a few inches open. He crossed the street in seven enthusiastic strides, and fully ignored the plastic Closed sign dangling from the doorknob to let himself in. Over his head, a chain of bells announced his presence.

"We're closed! Come back later, after five. We open for dinner then," came the accented call from deeper in the restaurant. He lingered in the entryway, before a four foot tall photograph of Mt. Emei. Early morning light tinted the cotton fog blue against black spurts of foliage and a lonely paifang atop the highest apex. Electricity and mundane ingenuity behind the glass lit surface made it appear as if the fog was moving. Under the photograph were a series of gumball, candy and prize machines. They seemed to have the same amount of wares as when he was last here.

Turning, he made to step further into the restaurant rather than out of it. The bell's silence roused the voice to speak again. "I saaaaaaaiiid we're clooooooosed!" Cranky, raspy, nasal. The man's voice augered straight to his brain. "Are you deaf, come back laaaaa---" Cris turned the corner to meet the old man halfway. His wild grey hair sprouted backward from a receding hairline. Miniscule glasses perched on the bridge of a birdbeak nose, smaller than the squinted eyes that widened, sadly, to only the size of peas. He held a broom in his hands, his skin mottled with age spots, arthritic knuckles swollen.

"Aiiiiee-yaah! What are you doing here? We've nooooo problem with the Nephilim! Goooooo away!"

"Dad!" a second voice filled the empty restaurant. "What is wrong with you? I just told you to put out silverware, I didn't tell you to have a stroke!" This voice belonged to a young woman. She had her brown hair parted above her left eye and it framed her face in soft waves. Round cheeks were pale as cream, smooth and without a hint of blush or freckle. Her almond shaped eyes widened in the same way her father's had.

"Cris!"

He bowed his head in a nod first for the old man. "Lao Lai." His gaze switched to the young woman who had recovered from her shock quickly enough to keep her father from swinging the broom.

"Hello, Ming."

The room had not changed.

He stood in its center, the beige, level loop carpet stiff under his boots. There was a bed to his left, turned down with white sheets and a thin quilt that matched the walls. Before him, a simple, walnut desk and chair set, devoid of any decoration. To his right, the sliding doors of a closet. The window above the desk stood partly open, a dry wind bubbling under off white, gauze drapes.

"You're welcome to stay as long as you need to," Ming said at his back. He nodded, spurning the second wealth of relief he felt at the offer.

"Thank you."

"How long do you intend to, exactly?"

He raised one dark brow, looking back at her over his shoulder. She had eased into a lean against the door frame, her white forearms folded beneath her breasts.

"To stay," she supplied.

"Oh. Erm?" He ran the tip of his left thumb over the scars on his knuckles. "A few days, I suppose. I'd not meant for this visit to be long. I will repay you, of course."

Ming shook her head, one fat curl of her hair sweeping over her collarbone. "You're a friend that happens to be a guest, Cris. Not the other way around. You don't have to repay us."

"I shouldn't merely like to make use of a spare room in your home and do nothing in return."

It was Ming's turn to blink, wonder sharpening her gaze and the softness of her features before she schooled them. He pressed his lips together.

"Ming? Whatever it is I've done to you or your family, I---"

"Quit it. It's nothing. I'll let you get comfortable." She dropped her gaze first and withdrew from the doorway. "If you don't plan on putting on an apron and helping our waiters, I'd suggest clearing out until tonight." The loss of her company was like the falling of a curtain, gentle but palpable and the silence, by New York's standards, that descended was absolute. The lull between car horns and sirens padded, soft.

Shaking his coat open, he draped it along the back of the chair. His blades followed, resting parallel to the edge of the desk. One floor below, the window looked out onto a large yard with a thatch of pure green grass cut to an even fringe. It was an Eden in the midst of steel, glass and concrete. A sliver of the earth that once was and in its center an elderly man stood with his feet shoulder width apart. Arthritic knuckles were held tightly together as the man slit graceful patterns through the air. He turned, cupping his palms toward his own chest, then forced them outward.

Even watching the carefully regulated motions of qigong was a balm to his anxiety, a beast that that simmered below the surface of his skin. Reminding him it was there with each twitch of muscle, each too quick thud of his heart. Exhaling, he turned away from the window and took the narrow hallway that led to the back of the building. A flight of nine stairs took him down to the main floor and there, he paused.

To his right and against the wall, beneath twin hanging scrolls depicting elegant women pouring water into a river, stood a shrine. The dresser upon which it stood was made of the same, dark walnut as the furnishings in the spare room. A photograph of an old woman smiled at him from within a simple, gold frame. She was surrounded by small bowls filled with ripe fruit, small oranges and peaches nestled together. Incense holders on either side of her held two fragrant sticks whose edges were black from the kiss of flame.

Ming's voice filtered through his mind like vapor. We all did. Māma especially. He furrowed his brow to force his gaze to remain on the smiling woman's face. Lai Fei had never been anything but kind to him, and he could not even remember the last time he had seen her alive.

He went to the dresser and slid his fingers into the drawer pulls, drawing it open after a moment's hesitation. An open box of long reach matches and a sleeve of fresh incense sticks waited for him. Taking one of each, with the touch of the small flame against it, the incense burned with the strong scents of sage and spices. He stood it to her left, turning the pair into a trio, and put his palms together. Head bowed until he could detect traces of lemongrass on his fingertips.

"A prayer from a Shadowhunter means nothing," came a nasal chide from behind him. Cris' hands broke from each other and he looked. The elder Lai stood at the door, sliding it closed. "You believe in nothing, and so nothing will hear you."

"I meant to pay my respects," he said, finding his voice. "Ming did not mention that her mother had died."

"She wouldn't." Lai Shen put his hands behind his back and turned to face him. It was difficult to imagine that this was the same man that had attempted to throw him out while wielding a broom. He spoke his native tongue with a slurred, guttural ease, fixing his thin eyes on Cris. "It is ill fortune to speak of the dead."

He glanced aside to Lai Fei's smile, but respecting Lai Shen's advice, he said nothing.

"Perhaps that is why you have had such a difficult time."

Blinking, he looked back to the older man.

"Youth is wasted on the young, it is said. You have a life to live before you act like an old man, Crispin."

"---I've come here to attempt to let go."

Lai Shen moved past him at a pace slow enough to wing a considering glance upward. "Tchi! Only if you truly mean that will it happen. Now!" The transition from Mandarin to English was seamless. It had always given him the idea that Lai Shen enjoyed tricking others into believing he was nothing but a doddering old man. "Yooouuuuu! Dropping by uuuuuunannounced. You take over spare room like you own it! You believe this hotel? No? Then you will work! Come. There is much to do!!!"

Left with very little choice, he followed Lai Shen through the kitchen's back entrance, drowning incense with the scents of frying vegetables and the tang of sesame sauce.

A few days later?

Dawn was crisp no matter where he found himself. Shy sunlight turned the sky to crystal, the air was thin and surprisingly clear. A modest group of birds were his company in the walled in enclosure behind Tiger Lily.

The space before him was equal parts stone and lawn. Concrete cold on the soles of his bare feet, the walkway led to a small pond in its center. Uneven stone slabs had been poured, stamped and arranged to look like naturally occurring formations. Saplings grew at the southeast and northwest corners of the courtyard, their leaves full and shimmering in the gentle, cool breeze. It kissed his skin, tickled his sleep crushed hair and bothered the unfolded sheet of cardstock in his hand.

The address printed there was not the grave's direct location, but the closest intersection. 90th and Central Park West. It said nothing else. He had read the single line of text so much that were he asked to draw it from memory, he could replicate every loop and curve of Ming's petite hand without thought. The creases she had folded into the paper were soft with abuse, tearing in places.

The clink of a tea service set down startled him from a thoughtless haze. Ming joined him on the back porch, swathed in mauve silk and a pale, coral robe. Dainty white slippers kept dirt and the morning chill from her feet. She had gathered her hair into a plait and tied its end with a ribbon that matched her nightgown. Without the smudge of eyeliner, the length of mascara, her eyes were thin and decidedly sharper than they would have been. Her lips were nude and there was a painter's careless smattering of freckles on the apples of her cheeks.

"It's a beautiful morning."

He nodded, turning his gaze back to the pond. "It is, yes."

"It will be clear all day."

Mouth pressed to a line, he crushed the address in his fist and let it rest against the porch between his legs.

"As it was yesterday."

He took a breath of the cold air, holding the scent of earth in his throat.

"As it will be---"

"Yes," he cut in. "Yes, I know."

"---tomorrow," Ming continued like he hadn't. Half twisted to face him, she had her tapered fingertips pressed to the lid of the small terracotta teapot. A swell of steam birthed jade green tea into palm sized cups. She set the pot aside and handed him his with both hands. He took it with one.

"It has been three days, Cris."

White gold and thin, the sun's rays were beginning to slither their way down to earth. Tree leaves shimmered and the small pond before them was as undisturbed as a sheet of newly cooled glass.

"I know."

"What is stopping you?" She took a demure sip of her tea and exhaled to relieve her tongue. "I was told that you were there when they found her body."

Despite the warmth of the day that he could already feel across the back of his neck, a chill stole its way through him. His fingers around the cup suddenly felt fat and cumbersome.

"What I mean is, Cris, you've seen her in worse states than what you will see her in today. Today you will see a monument created by those who loved her. It's a tribute, not a travesty."

Swallowing, he set the cup of tea aside and dried the cold sweat on his palms in his hair. "Are you that convinced that I will go?"

"You do not run from your feelings because you are innately a coward, Cris. You run from them in a desperate attempt to bolster your strength."

He exhaled. "When I decided to come here, I knew that if I let myself think, I would talk myself out of it. I've all the reason in the world to stay where I am now."

"But?"

He didn't have a but planned. He shook his head and pulled his hand down his face. Three day's worth of stubble bent under his palm.

"I've seen you. You wear white every day for her. It would be disrespectful to not to at least see what's been done while you were gone."

Squinting, he looked down at the stone beneath his feet. A black Mark snuck out from the cuff of his gear, crawling below his right ankle. "It's just---very hard."

He did not see her nod. "Death is never easy." She turned her head to look at him. "Especially when it comes to someone you expect to live forever. What do you think she would be disappointed in you the most for? Failing to die, or failing to live?"

Her words put marble into his spine. His expression hardened, shoulders pulled back when he took his next breath. "That's a hard question to answer," he said, a half smile touching one corner of his mouth. When he stood and looked at her, he found her eyes already on him. The gulf between was nearly visible, the three feet of actual space feeling more like three hundred. There was a sheen missing from her gaze, as if she'd given up looking for anything recognizable, resigned to deal with what he had now become.

The weighty tide of insignificance that rushed through him drowned his apprehension, and he was grateful for it.

"But?I suspect she would have a lot to say. Thank you, Ming." Turning, he stepped up onto the porch. In his periphery, she turned in her seat too.

"Will you be coming back?"

"Yes. Would it be all right to leave my blades and my coat here in the meantime?"

She nodded. "Of course. They won't be touched."

He felt the steady presence of her stare between his shoulder blades as he walked away. It met the Mark for courage, whose artist he remembered as clearly as his own face. The last expression he'd seen her give him when he told her he had to leave.

If anything, for her, he would get this over with now.

Your eyes stare right through me
Ignoring my failed attempts to
Breathe back life into your veins
But I can't start your cold heart beating
You're so far gone, but I'm not leaving
When all I know is you

And you left me
More dead than you'll ever know
When you left me alone

Starset -- Let It Die

Fingertips skidded backward along her name. A, C, N all the way to B.

"You're beautiful."

?

?

?

?

"I think---I wanted to apologize to you for taking so long to come. But I don't know how I could mean it. Do you really think I could?"

?

?

?

"You did not mean to leave. But you did."

?

?

?

?

"I failed you. I think. You would be so ashamed of me."

?

?

?

"B'lana is dead. Kael hounds Salome. And I---I am comfortable far away from it all. I've destroyed several lives between last year and today. Too many of them did not deserve it."

?

"The only thing, the only ray of light I have now, is Leena."

?

?

?

"Theron was wrong. She had been shot, but not killed."

?

?

"Had I known that at the time? If I had merely waited?? Where would I be now?"

?

"Surely, I still would have met you. I would have met Salome, and I would have fought Valentine's War."

?

?

?

"Why did you want me so badly? You never answered me that when I asked. I was nothing to you. I was nothing for you. I had nothing to offer but silence, and yet for some reason, you wanted me there with you.

"She could not find me, because of you.

"For seven years."

?

?

?

"Did you know??

"I went to you because I had nothing left. Someone wanted me, somewhere. It did not matter if I didn't understand, and it certainly didn't matter if it was the right choice. All I knew was that I could not stay where everything reminded me of her."

?

?

?

"I think about that, all the time.

"What would have happened if I'd stayed. What pain could I have saved her? Saved myself, saved Salome? The only one in this situation that hadn't felt any pain at all, was you. Nothing, up until the end."

?

?

?

?

"Salome hates when I talk about this. She does not like to know that, had I the choice to do it all over again, I would have never seen either of you a second time. Angel knows what I would have done if Theron told me she'd been killed, but I wouldn't have gone."

?

?

"You saved me, Bianca. You saved me once, but you....you destroyed me. Several times over. And I've never wanted to admit that you've done it."

?

?

?

"I counted on you. I needed something to count on. To lean against, something that I did not feel was going to abandon me because it suddenly thought I was capable of breathing without one of my lungs."

?

"But you left me anyway. Even you, could not stay."

?

?

?

?

"How did you think I could do anything without you here? Where did you think I would be? You took me. You showed me so much. You knew where I was and what you were saving me from."

?

"How could you think you were done?"

?

?

?

"You've no idea what it feels like....to fail every single person you've ever loved."

?

?

?

"You don't? ? ?"

?

?

?

"And now you never will."

?

?

?

"While I am here. Feeling it twice?"

?

?

?

"It never goes away. I can't make it stop?"

?

"It is there every time I see myself in the mirror."

?

?

?

?

?

"I---I hate you?"

?

?

?

"I h-hate?"

?

?

?

?

?

"I? ? ?"

"How did you know where I was?"

This time as he walked, he was not alone. Salome took two steps for every one of his, the heels of her boots rapping petite clicks. She wore a tan leather coat over a predominantly white, graphic t shirt. Dark jeans hugged her slim legs. Half of her black hair was drawn away from her face with a rubber band. Even so, the bun was lopsided and precarious, bobbing with every stride and ready to fall.

"Ming told me," she said. She pulled her shoulders in and bent into the breeze. "About an hour after you left, she said."

He blinked, lids heavy. There was a pound of sand in his eyes and embers in his throat that softened his voice, adding a rasp. "I see."

"She didn't say much. Just where you were and that I'd probably have to come get you. God, it's like I'm your mom."

Snorting, he pushed his fingers further down into the pockets of his gear.

Salome strode between him and the reservoir, but that did not stop him from looking over her head. Intermittent clouds had finally left the sunlight alone. The water glittered like a pile of broken glass, sharp, forcing him to squint.

"So. How long have you been in town?"

Once again, he blinked, gaze dropping to the top of her head. The light picked out a hint of cherry red in the shine of her hair. "She didn't tell you?"

"Why should she? She didn't even have to tell me where you were."

Lips pressed together, he turned his gaze ahead of them. The pedestrian traffic had thinned out to the occasional cyclist or dogwalker. With each passing animal, he took a step closer to Salome until he felt her elbow dig into his.

"Only a few days."

"Well, aren't you sentimental?"

He felt the bristle work its way down his spine, but he let it go in an exhale. "If I didn't leave when I did, I never would have come at all, and I would have regretted it more."

She was silent, with her face turned toward the water. One of her hands quickly pressed a piece of curling black behind her ear. "So what did you think?"

"Of the stone, you mean."

"Mhmm."

"It was beautiful. You placed a spell upon that clearing, yes?"

She nodded, the quick force of it unhooking the lock of hair she'd just tucked away. "Probably not the most subtle thing I've ever done. It paints a big fat target there for anyone else that can feel or see it. But anyone that can feel it or see it isn't going to care. It's too far outside Faerie reach to be worth anything. What, are they going to be like Get thine rock off my lawn?"

His chuckle tripped over itself on its way out. Fist pressed to his lips, he cleared his throat, telltale wrinkles at the corners of his eyes too prominent to be a mere squint. He felt, more than he saw, her turn to look at him.

"If something tampers with it, I'll know."

Nodding, he wiped away the lingering traces of his smile with the inside of his hand. She looked up at him again, and this time he saw it. The steady consideration in her gaze and the way it roamed his cheek and on down the side of his neck. Moments later, she turned her gaze back to the footpath.

"Where is she?"

He did not insult either of their intelligence by pretending he didn't know who she meant. "She didn't come."

"Seriously? She let you go by yourself?"

"What am I to you, a child?"

"Do you really want me to answer that question?"

Snorting, he leaned into her shoulder. The pressure of her reciprocated shove wasn't as harsh as it had been previously. "I asked her if she'd like to come with me and she hesitated. She told me that she would if I wanted to her to."

"But she hesitated."

He nodded. "She hesitated."

They walked in silence for close to a full minute. He kept count of the passing moments, one for each of his footsteps. Sunlight through leaves that shimmered like emeralds, dotting the footpath with little drops of gold. Its uneven warmth felt good, connected him to the world outside his own mind. To be but a mere speck in the existence of one city, one state, one country, was a grand and humbling notion. The world would move on without him, as sure as it was with him in it.

At forty-seven, she said his name. "Cris."

"Mmm?"

"I was thinking. You know. Earlier." She turned her head, facing the reservoir. The ever-present breeze captured one black curl and pressed it across the bridge of her nose. She hooked it on a black claw, drawing it back. "I've been thinking of having a get together, with everyone who helped us. I wasn't going to for a couple weeks yet. Make it real sentimental and do it on the day of. But you showed up."

"Did I throw a wrench into your thought process?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Nephilim," but she said it through a smile. "I think it'd be?I don't know. They've asked about you. You could tell them yourself."

Squinting, it was his turn to look away. He hadn't meant for his presence in town to be so advertised. He'd hoped to fly under the radar, to see and speak to only those whom were necessary to accomplish what he came here to do.

"I don't know, Salome."

"You don't have to," she added. "You could do your thing. No one would ever know you were here."

"Except you."

She waved her hand. "Yeah. Well, I know everything. When will you remember that?"

Pausing in the middle of the footpath, he crossed his arms tight over his chest. Black scrawl of Marks along either forearm shifted with each minute pull of muscle behind flesh. Salome continued on for two and a half strides before she stopped, turned to face him. The same breeze bothering her hair slithered cold across his throat.

Inhale forced his grip to tighten, and he told the reservoir: "I'll think about it."

"Sure," she said, "Just don't take too long."