Inked

clothes?” I asked her quietly. “You gave him something to trade.”
    “Well, that would be a waste,” she said. “I paid him for something else.”

8
    JEAN hailed a pedicab, and ordered the driver, in rough Mandarin, to take us to the former French Concession—a destination I learned about only after she translated. I had been there before, in the twenty-first century—quite unexpectedly, under terrible circumstances.
    The appearance of the neighborhood was as I remembered, though I had to remind myself that I was from the future—and that it was mere luck and preservation that had left the French Concession, in my time, mostly intact after sixty years. Very little seemed different. There were still those quiet streets lined with old trees, and those glimpses of rooftops and windows visible over the glass-embedded tops of high walls. The air tasted cooler, cleaner. Not so many people out and about, and there were fine cars parked at the side of the road. Japanese soldiers patrolled in pairs, eyeing us suspiciously as we passed. But no one told us to stop.
    We were let out at a leafy cobblestone intersection in front of a simple black gate that looked the same as every other that we had passed. But Jean stood for a long moment, staring at it as though the iron might burn her. “Are you certain you insist?”
    “Tell me why I shouldn’t,” I said. “You have a reason.”
    “I’m no longer certain it’s a sufficient one.” Jean shot me a piercing look. “I do good here, whether you believe that or not. I help people. I may have to leave after this, and I don’t…I don’t know where I’ll go. I don’t belong anywhere.”
    I dared to graze her arm with the tips of my fingers. “If there’s another way to remove those children from her control—”
    “Even this might not be enough. The fact that she knows our bloodline exists…” Jean stopped, and studied the gate again, thoughtfully. “Ernie, Winifried…all of them. It sounds as though they lived long, full lives, regardless of what happened to them in this time and place. They died old. You and I both know that’s a gift, even if it was cut short before their time.”
    It was a gift, yes, but a bitter one. I said nothing, though. Simply waited for Jean to make up her mind. I was not going to push this final step down her throat. Even if I had almost everything else.
    I did not wait long. She raised her gloved fist and knocked hard on the dull iron gate. It opened so quickly, hardly before her hand was away, that I wondered whether we had been watched from the other side.
    I hoped not. It was Ernie who faced us. Even Jean seemed startled to see him. He was dressed in new clothes—a starched, white short-sleeve shirt and black slacks. A uniform, maybe. It looked too large on his frame, the tattoo on his skin oversized for such bony wrists. A little tin pin was attached to his shirt above his heart. His expression was grave, which made him look like the old man he would become, instead of a little kid.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, giving me a piercing look as though I was somehow to blame. Which I was.
    “I seem to have developed a nagging concern for your well-being,” Jean replied. “You and the others. I’ve come to break your contracts.”
    “You can’t. You’ll only make it worse.”
    Jean laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Come on. Maybe you’ll thank me for this one day.”
    Ernie backed away from the gate, one hand tapping spasmodically against his skinny thigh. Looking at us with desperate despair, as though his ragged heart was breaking in his eyes. He resembled a wild animal more than a child, or some kid raised by wolves and then tossed into human clothes—out of place, lost, and very alone.
    But he was not alone. Behind him, standing in regular intervals throughout a carefully landscaped garden, were thick-necked white men—watching us, armed with rifles. All of them wore soldier uniforms, lightweight summer issue. They did not seem surprised to see us, or even alarmed, but their dead, flat gazes were profoundly cold. They reminded me of attack dogs—quiet, restrained, ready for that right, deadly moment. I wondered if they had tattoos on their wrists, as well.
    I focused on Ernie. “Sometimes you have to believe in people, kid. Before you forget how.”
    He began to shake his head, but froze when Jean brushed her knuckles against his cheek. “If I asked you to walk through this gate and go home,