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Finished with exploring, Cormia rolled onto her back and floated along and looked at the sky. The twinkling lights above made her think of her place in the Chosen and of her duty to be one among many, a molecule that was part of a whole. She and her sisters were indistinguishable within the grand tradition they served: just like this water, seamless and fluid, with no boundaries; just like the stars above, all the same.

Looking up at earth’s heaven, she had another one of those random, heretical thoughts, only this one wasn’t about house design or what someone wore or whether she liked a bit of food or didn’t.

This one went straight to the core of her and marked her as a sinner and a heretic:

She did not want to be one of many.

Not with the Primale. Not to him.

And not to herself.

Across town, Qhuinn sat on his bed and stared down at the cell phone in his palm. He’d typed out a text that was addressed to both Blay and John, and was just waiting to send the fucker.

He’d been sitting here for what seemed like hours, but had probably just been one at the most. After he’d taken a shower to wash Lash’s blood off, he’d planted his ass down and braced himself for what was coming.

For some reason, he kept thinking about the one nice thing he could remember his parents ever doing for him. It had been back about three years ago. He’d been bugging them to be allowed to go to his cousin Sax’s in Connecticut for, like, months. Saxton had already gone through his transition and was a little wild, so naturally he was Qhuinn’s hero. And naturally, the ’rents didn’t approve of Sax or his parents—who were not all that interested in the glymera’s self-imposed social wedgies.

Qhuinn had begged and pleaded and whined and gotten a whole lot of nothing for his efforts. And then out of the blue his father had informed him that he was getting his way and going south for the weekend.

Joy. Total fucking joy. He’d packed up three days early, and when he’d gotten in the back of the car after dark and been driven over the border into Connecticut, he’d felt like he was king of the world.

Yeah, it had been nice of his parents.

Course, then he’d learned why they’d done it.

The adventure at Sax’s hadn’t worked out all that well. He’d ended up drinking up a storm with his cuz during Saturday ’s daylight hours and had gotten so sick off a lethal combo of Jägermeister and vodka Jell-O shots that Sax’s parents had insisted he head home to recover.

Being driven back by one of their doggen had been such the ride of shame, and what was worse, he kept having to ask the chauffeur to stop so he could throw up some more. The only saving grace was that Sax’s folks had agreed not to tell his parents—on the condition that he make a full confession when he was dropped at his front door. Clearly, they didn’t want to deal with his mother and father, either.

As the doggen had pulled up in front of the house, Qhuinn had figured he was just going to say he felt ill, which was true, and that he’d asked to come back home, which was not true and never would be true.

Except things didn’t go down like that.

Every light in the place had been on, and music had been streaming in the air, coming from a tent set up out back. Candles were lit in every window; people were moving around in every room.

“ ’Tis a good thing we got you back in time,” the doggen at the wheel had said in his happy doggen voice. “Would be a shame for you to miss this.”

Qhuinn had gotten out of the car with his bag and not noticed as the servant drove off.

Of course, he’d thought. His father was stepping down as leahdyre of the glymera after a distinguished term of service heading the Princeps Council. This was the party to celebrate his work and to mark the passing of the position to Lash’s father.

And this was what the staff had been bustling around about for the last couple weeks. He’d just figured his mother was going through another one of her anal, clean-everything periods, but no. All the spic-n-span had been in anticipation