Page 19 of Practical Boots

Not that Cat had any plan to tell the kid what had happened, or even ever meet them, for that matter, but in the space between her own ears, muttering about appreciation felt justified.

Either way, she needed blood. Her blood, specifically. And as a child of the Torn, she wasn't exactly in the habit of visiting human doctors, but making another syringe out of the Waste seemed like overkill. Cat stomped back out of her bedroom and gave the two humans in her living room the most appealing, helpless look she could achieve. "Know anybody who can draw a teensy bit of my blood, no questions asked?"

Kallie and Rick's conversation dried up, silence lingering in the air until Rick said, "If you're asking do I know people who take drugs intravenously…"

Cat stared at him a moment. “Honestly, that didn’t occur to me. I was thinking more like a doctor or pharmacist friend who would look the other way.”

“Oh.” Rick looked shifty. “I knew that.”

Kallie snorted reached for her phone. "I've got a friend who works at the vet down the street. She can probably help for a cash donation to their rescue center."

Half an hour later, at the vet's back door, a judgmental-looking woman in her forties withdrew a small vial of Cat's blood, handed it to her, pocketed a considerable amount of cash in exchange, and went back inside without ever saying a single word. "I like that," Cat said, looking after her. "Nice, simple, uncomplicated customer service."

"Cat, nothing is ever simple with you. You good? I'm going back to the apartment to make sure Rick doesn't die of troll poisoning."

"Dryad poisoning, really," Cat said absently. "Trolls can't produce toxins. But yeah, I'm good."

Kallie's exasperation was delivered in an expression that did Kermit the Frog proud. Cat grinned and took her buzzing phone out as the other woman left. "Yeah?"

Savos said, "I think I have what you need. Where are you?"

"I can meet you where you are." Cat got her location, hung up the phone, andstepped. A moment later, she stood beside Savos in a small wooded area that made a pretense of being away from the city. Savos held a small chunk of blue-green stone, streaked with very thin bands of yellow, in one hand, and offered it to Cat.

Cat held it up to the light, admiring the rough tones and how the green was deeper at one end than the other, which held more blueish-grey in its depths. "This is perfect. What is it?"

"Same kind of quartz as tiger's eye, but with less iron. It's called hawk's eye, and it's not as well-known. Do you need me to polish or shape it?"

"I don't think so. Thank you." Cat tucked the chunk of rock into her coat pocket and met Savos's eyes. "We're even. You owe me nothing. My word as a daughter of the Torn."

Savos, dryly, said, "We all know what that's worth," but nodded and left Cat in the little copse of trees.

She had blood. She had an object of the World. There was nothing but her own reluctance keeping her from doing what her father wanted.

Shestepped.

* * *

Bafflingly, shesteppedback to Los Angeles, where she'd been only that morning, in her personal timeline. It was late afternoon there now, sun blazing in a sky lined at the horizons with thin brown smog, and heat wobbling off the skyscrapers. Cat scowled upward, bewildered. The boots should have taken her to her father, whoshouldhave been in the Torn. But she wasn’t just in Los Angeles; she was in the same location she’dsteppedto earlier, the alley a block or so away from the fertility clinic. Already sweating, she hurried to the fertility clinic building and passed through security with her courier credentials. A few minutes and thirty-eight floors higher, she pushed the clinic door open, a rueful smile in place for the pleasant receptionist.

For the first few seconds, what she saw made no sense.

The gorgeous interior looked as if a storm had swept through it, upending and shattering chairs and coffee tables, breaking apart the big welcome desk, leaving all-too-identifiable smears on the windows. Some of those smears, backlit by the intense sunshine, were still dripping. Bodies lay beneath them. There was no other motion in the reception room, no voices, no quiet hum of power feeding machinery or even lights.

Cat took a dozen long strides to the room Grace Law had been staying in, and threw the door open.

Chaos hadn't been unleashed in there, nor—after a quick glance—in any of the other high-end waiting rooms. Cat stood frozen in the door of the last one, staring at blood sliding down a window, and tried to think.

Grace should have been there, and if she wasn't, then the signs of a struggle surely should have been.

Except—except—the penny dropped as slowly as the stuff sliding down the windows—except Cat had been there that morningin her personal timeline.

It had been at least seven days in the World's timeline. Days that Rick had spent missing, where he'd called for help, where Cat had traveled to the Torn to get Savos, and come back again. At least seven days.

She didn't know much about fertility clinics, but she bet most of them didn't keep people on site for weeks on end. Grace could have gone home days ago. Not that Cat had any idea where 'home' was for her.

Neither did her father.

He could travel the Waste; that much was evident by the fact that Cat herself existed, and that her half-sibling was on the way. But no one except those who shared blood of both the Torn and the World traveled iteasily. What took Cat seconds could easily take him hours, or even days.

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