It didn’t fall. Made a snapping sound and it stayed there. About two feet off the ground. No flicker or waver. Static. Solid. Still. An intense but narrow gold-green light invested the edges of the metal. Made the symbols glow. The space inside the frame continued to show the window beyond it.

“It will be a minute or two before I can leave,” Shriek said. Finch said. As Finch had watched, it had almost been like watching himself do it. A ghost watching its body move about the apartment.

“What happens next?” Finch asked.

“I complete the mission. Time doesn’t work the way we think it works. Not really. I’ll go into the HFZ to pick up the trail. From there, I will journey years and worlds away and return. An army gathered with me. I will be the beacon, the light, that guides them.”

Words came tumbling out Finch hadn’t known were there. “Why? Why do it? What does it matter to someone”—something—“so old. Who is so … removed”—alien—“from all of this.”

The intensity of his need to know shocked him.

A sad, lonely smile. “The truth? None of my books ever changed anything. Nothing I did changed anything. I always tried, and I always failed. But Bliss helped me to see that failing a hundred times didn’t mean you had to fail every time.”

“And you trust Bliss?”

“About this? Yes. Even if I am just an echo, this is the last chance.”

“It’s too late to put things right,” Finch said. “Too much has gone wrong.” Ruined neighborhoods. The vacant stares of the people from the camps. The fighting in the streets. The effects of decades of near-constant war.

“As much as they can be put right, Finch,” Shriek said.

“And after? What then?”

Shriek’s dark gaze, from a dark place. The rectangle hanging in the air like a magic trick. A terrible power. Something in between.

“After? After, I’ll be gone. Somewhere. Everywhere. Nowhere. A pile of ashes at the base of the towers…”

“And I’ll still be here,” Finch said. It came out like an ache.

Shriek, forceful: “You are a man who did the best he could in impossible circumstances. That’s all.”

After Shriek left, he would be alone. Terribly injured. In an apartment with two dead bodies. In a war zone.

The door lit up. Became a reflecting mirror.

“I’m leaving now, Finch,” Shriek said.

“Wait!” A last burst of curiosity. “Tell me what happened. How did you end up in this apartment?”

Shriek’s features softened. “I tried something dangerous. Something impossible. I tried to use the nexus at Zamilon to go back in time. I tried to change the past so I wouldn’t have to change the future. But you can’t do that. And the past caught up with me. The attempt almost killed me.”