Knowing that Detective Winters was alive had changed something in me. I no longer saw the struggle of Agent Saint as hopeless. I no longer saw myself as someone being drawn into a war I hadn't started. I saw the efforts of the FBI and my role as worthwhile. My hopelessness had fallen silent, and in the silence I could hear something I had not heard in a long time.

Detective Winters had never died; he had disappeared after Threnody's death. I vaguely remembered her funeral. It was as though time had become rearranged so that she had died and Detective Winters had vanished. Then I had found him on her grave. He had gone home, after his house had sat cold and empty for so long.

I stood with him on the back porch with my crow on my shoulder. "I know a good place to get some food."

"I don't want to go visit Josh Feltman. I don't want to see him." Detective Winters stated. He stared out over the water.

"You might change your mind. He loved her and spent years with her." I reminded him. He nodded, seeing my point, then shook his head because he wasn't ready.

"I don't want to." Detective Winters had his Zippo and used it on the first cigarette of a new pack. "Threnody died in my place. That's what has happened. I know I was dead, I've dreamed of it. I remember being a part of you."

"We must help Agent Saint." I changed the subject. "So little has changed that it is like this is what was supposed to happen."

"No." Detective Winters blew smoke. "There will always be another Jack L. Winters. There will never be another Threnody. She was a light in this world, it is darker now."

"We all die, my friend. The only difference is what we live for. She lived for you; lived in a dream. When the dream was gone: so was she. You have unfinished business. Don't make her sacrifice a waste." I was able to speak to Detective Winters without any fear of him. I only saw him as my friend, and I had already known a greater fear, thanks to Samual Monica and Private Eye Shale.

"You are right, Lord." He agreed with me. Then he added: "You have changed."

"I know." I realized. Feeling young and vital again had given me something I hadn't felt in a long time.

"When we talked about what had happened that never happened: you said we had aged. I had died decrepit, unable to handle Streetsweeper. They had used magic to make my weapon fall to pieces." Detective Winters recalled.

"They are not ordinary witches. They are the remaining daughters of Lilith, each with an elemental magic as her crown. One of them is dead and Mankind has her crown, that of fire." I told him what I had learned before.

Detective Winters blew some smoke and then flicked the butt out over the waves below where we stood on his back porch. He thought for awhile and nodded. Then he smiled oddly as he thought of something else to discuss.

"So you were an old man this whole time. How're things with Heidi, now?" He asked. "How does that work? Didn't that change?"

"She says we have a wonderful sex life and she seems unaware that Isidore and her were lovers." I explained. "But I don't remember any moment with her except when we made Penelope. Another thing I have discovered is that she never got Persephone tested for paternity. Only I know what the results were. Isidore has no idea that I know."

"Isidore cheated?" Detective Winters was surprised.

"No. She was already pregnant when she came to me and she knew it. She wanted me to think that Persephone is mine." I elaborated.

"I could have told." Cory added banally.

"It is our secret, among us guys." Detective Winters reminded my crow.

"My Winters thinks that a crow cannot keep a secret." Cory made a humming noise like an engine changing gears, a sardonic laugh.

We all laughed then, for it is well known that to a crow: secrets are currency. Among crows mine was quite wealthy.

"Call the FBI and tell them that we are going to help them." Detective Winters sighed. I nodded and left him there.

I stayed the night at Detective Winters and in the morning I called Agent Saint and told her that I had him to help with the case she was working on.

"You never called me before. What has changed, Mr. Briar?" Agent Saint asked. Her tone of voice over the phone expressed that she found my behavior to be significant.

"I am different now. I have changed. When I knew you before, in a another life, I was afraid to help you. I have journeyed strangely to be here, in this world. I am ready to help and so is Detective Winters." I tried to explain.

"I know the difference. All of the same things have happened; they just occurred in the way that they must in order for this moment, this phonecall, to happen." Agent Saint sounded understanding. "I can see the difference."

"In what way?" I wondered.

"Recently a man named Castini Ishbaal was convicted for the murder of Anson Carni. I interviewed him when he explained that his victim was not human. He is in Dellfriar now. To my visitor, a little one, you were the one who saved her. She came to me because the FBI had her key. I acquired it for her and she has gone home, asking me to thank you for what you did. It made me understand and see the difference. The truth is here, in this world. Wherever you were was a lie, a dream."

"I don't know how to take that. I was guilty and somehow things are reversed, better than before. I don't understand." I was confused. How could things have changed so much and still remained the same?

"Some things have not changed. You are still under my watch and we are still on the case of the Triad Killers. You have told us nothing that you know and my team doesn't think you will help us." Agent Saint wasn't finished. I had to interrupt her and ask:

"How did you come to me if I never met them?" I wondered.

"Because you have met them. When Officer Sharon went missing up at Bell Creek and could not be found it was recommended by Detective Winters to the FBI that you might be able to explain the pattern of disappearances. You agreed to help and when I took you there you told me it was certainly a form of witchcraft, of black magic, something to do with our Triad Killers. Later they had us ambushed. You remember none of that?"

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"I remember the ambush." I sighed. Fate, destiny, free will, all of those were just how anyone categorizes their experiences. Evidently time and dreams and memories were all the same thing. As things had changed they had also stayed the same. I was dumbfounded.

"Let's get some coffee, Lord. You, me, Detective Winters and your talking crow. We have a lot of catching up to do." Agent Saint invited.

"Alright." I agreed. I told Detective Winters about the phonecall earlier in the morning before he got up. He poured some stale cereal into a bowl and then some expired milk and some heaps of sugar from the spoon. He ate it while thinking about being alive. When he was done with his breakfast he told me:

"Life always happens." And he smiled.

Cory heard this and began a slow laugh like a car engine warming up on a cold day. It burst forth with merry caws when he finally got the joke. My crow said:

"Do you not get it, my Lord? My Winters has made a very funny joke. It is funny because he is replacing the word 'death' with 'life' and equated the values. Because life is difficult to understand, just like death. Isn't that hilarious?" Cory hopped around excitedly and tried to explain Detective Winters to me.

"Yes. It is very funny." I breathed patiently.

"Let's go meet your FBI girlfriend." Detective Winters was putting on his coat and grabbing his car keys.

"That is funny too!" Cory chuckled like a lawnmower running out of gas and powering down. "Don't you get it? Because you already have a girlfriend at home where things are hot and that my Saint is as pure as unmelted snow. Isn't that very funny?"

"Yeah, it is hilarious. Let's keep that joke among ourselves, shall we?" I requested.

"But my Lord, my Saint might find it funny too." Cory protested as we went outside to get into the car.

I rolled down the windows as we drove away. I recalled that I used to be afraid that I would lose Cory out of a car window that was rolled down. Somehow I had lost that fear, trusting my bird not to get sucked out the open car window while we drove. So many things had changed, I had changed, Cory had changed. The whole world looked brighter and more hopeful.

"Women don't like it when there are jokes about their bodies." Detective Winters told Cory.

"Oh." Cory nested in the seat next to me and chirped his response.

"This is the place she wants to meet." I compared the text message she had sent to the name of the coffee place. It looked very familiar. I vaguely recalled the goldleaf invitation to another coffee shop across town, closer to Dr. Leidenfrost's apartment. To me all the coffee shops looked the same.

As we were going inside I noticed a car that must be hers. She always insisted upon renting the same tiny car when she was in town. It made it feel like she was driving her own vehicle, made her feel more at home.

We sat down with Agent Saint and I ordered Chai. Mostly we just sat around and smiled at each other. It felt good for all of us to be seated together. I wondered how long the good feelings would last. I knew that awfulness and horror would descend like a shadow. I dreaded the seachange as I sipped my drink.

"You have half of a book and the FBI has the other half." Agent Saint brought up business. I cringed.

"Yours was written by the Manuscript Killer while we jotted ours down in a dream; from which Detective Winters died and many truths were contaminated." I compared. She nodded.

"I've always known that the past, the present, the future and dreams are all part of the same world. It is how I see things." Agent Saint explained her understanding. "I see all things, it is my gift."

"She is an oracle." Cory said to us. "As long as she is chaste."

"We know that." I clicked my tongue to Cory. I hoped he wouldn't try to joke about her. He didn't, Cory just sat there with his head tilted and his beady crow eye fixated on Agent Saint.

"My team doesn't. They don't think I follow investigative procedures or use rationality to come to conclusions. Little have I achieved to convince them of the value of my strange abilities." Agent Saint said almost to herself and mostly to Cory.

"My Saint is the wisest of women. Don't let fools say otherwise." Cory told her in plain English.

"I like you, Cory. You are the wisest of birds." She told my talking crow. He didn't hesitate to agree:

"I know."

"I would like it if you both could fly out with me and my team of agents tomorrow. We are going there to interview some eyewitnesses that survived a similar ambush to ours. Perhaps we will find something that Agent Meroë and his investigation missed. He has assured me that this has got to be related to the Triad Killers case."

"I'm available. I am no longer with the police. Retired." Detective Winters muttered and stared into the inky night in his coffee mug.

"I just have to say goodbye. Cory will need a carrier." I replied.

"Then it is settled. I have everyone I need to solve this case. We are going to bring them to justice." She smiled confidently.

We left after that and Detective Winters dropped me off at Dr. Leidenfrost's and said he would get a carrier for Cory and pick me up in the morning for our flight. As he drove away Cory said:

"I can already fly."

"I know. We will be taking an airplane flight. We have to fly to get there." I explained.

"Doesn't that seem ridiculous to my Lord? That a crow should be caged to fly with humans?" Cory pondered out loud.

"Not really, but I can appreciate how you would find it ironic." I smiled and he flitted to my shoulder from where he stood on the ground as we went to the apartment.

That night I told Dr. Leidenfrost what I felt about her. I told her that I loved her and our daughter more than anything else in the world. She said nothing to me. Instead she got close to me, breathing delicately as she did whenever she was in the mood.

She kissed me and gently pushed me onto our bed. I remembered none of our nights together since the first one and as she slowly undressed me and then raised her night shirt over me I wished I could. We made love quietly in our room, staring into each other's eyes. Afterwards we lay together unmoving, still staring as we started to fall asleep.

The thought of our daughter's chimerism, one purple eye like her mother's and one gold, like mine, occurred to me. That we had made something that was half of each of us pleased me greatly. I was reluctant to leave my family; it seemed I had just come home and that now I must go again.

As I slept my mind addressed the reality of my existence. I no longer mattered in my own life; the world had proven better off without my interference. I felt like a stranger in my own body. I was so used to all of my scars and pain and the old face in the mirror that it felt alien to be young and whole again. Nothing felt permanent, all that I knew was only temporary.

When it was morning the horror finally settled in. It was a familiar feeling of fear and dreadfulness. The awful instinct that I would never again see my daughters or their mothers began to take hold of my thoughts. I sat on the couch between Isidore and Dr. Leidenfrost as the girls played together on the floor in front of us.

The ticking of the clock in the kitchen became a sound that was louder and louder. The coffee mug in my hands grew cold and the minutes rushed by. I could not keep the moment from ending, knowing it was the end, sensing that this was the very last I would ever see of them.

Cory perched near the door, anxious to go. He could read the fear in my eyes, he could see that behind the fear was a painful realization. My eyes watered and I tried to remain smiling and enjoy those last few moments, those fleeting seconds until...

The knock upon the door was insistent and willful. Then the time was up. Cory cawed loudly in hail of Detective Winters.

I stood slowly, set my coffee mug down on the table in the kitchen and lifted my backpack from the chair. Without looking back, without saying 'goodbye' I left. I couldn't bear it otherwise.

Detective Winters made no effort to see me out. He hastened ahead of me and my swooping crow down to his waiting car. The chill of morning shocked me, so familiar and still fresh and new at the same time. The mists that lingered in the sunrise made my hand ache and I was grateful for the pain.

"And now it is time for man to fly. This is something that I will enjoy." Cory announced as he hopped up and down on his seat.

"You will be in a cage above the clouds, sitting on Lord's lap." Detective Winters told Cory. "It is in the trunk: the largest cat carrier they had."

"A cat carrier?" Cory kissed the words gleefully. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

"The pet depot didn't have any cages for crows. No transportable bird cages." Detective Winters explained. He chuckled with an amused voice saying: "And I will have to check Streetsweeper. Can't have that with me on the plane."

"It would be useless in a fight against the Triad Killers." I stated wetly, trying not to think about my departure from home.

Then there was silence in the car. Something in my voice had ruined the jovial mood of Detective Winters and my crow. I heard myself say it then, and they heard it too and said nothing:

"I'm sorry."