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“With all due respect,” the doggen said, with his forehead still pointed to his feet, “your father has requested your departure from the premises.”

“Cool.” Qhuinn stood up with the duffel bag into which he’d packed his collection of T-shirts and his four pairs of jeans.

As he slung the strap on his shoulder, he wondered how long his cell phone service would be paid for. He’d been waiting for it to get cut off for the past couple months— ever since his allowance had suddenly disappeared.

He had a feeling T-Mobile, like him, was SOL.

“Your father asked that I should give you this.” The doggen didn’t straighten as he extended his hand and held out a thick, business-sized envelope.

The urge to tell the servant to take the damn thing and airmail it up his father’s ass was close to irresistible.

Qhuinn took the envelope and opened it. After looking at the papers, he calmly folded them up and put them back inside. Stuffing the thing into the back of his waistband, he said, “I’ll just go wait for my ride.”

The doggen lifted himself up. “At the end of the drive, if you would.”

“Yeah. Sure. Fine.” Whatever. "You need blood from me, don’t you.”

“If you would be so kind.” The doggen held out a brass goblet, the belly of which was lined in black glass.

Qhuinn used his Swiss Army knife, because his hunting one had been confiscated. Streaking the blade across his palm, he made a fist to squeeze some red drops out into the cup.

They were going to burn the stuff when he was out of the house as part of a cleansing ritual.

They weren’t just jettisoning the defective; they were getting rid of the evil.

Qhuinn left his room without looking back and headed down the hall. He didn’t say good-bye to his sister, even though he heard her practicing her flute, and he left his brother alone to continue reciting Latin verses. He didn’t stop by his mother’s drawing room when he heard her talking on the phone, either. And he sure as fuck kept going right by his father’s study.

They were all in on his evac. The proof was in the envelope.

Down on the first floor, he didn’t shut the grand front door loudly. No reason to make a show. They all knew he was leaving, which was why they were all so studiously busy instead of having tea in the family room.

He bet they convened as soon as the doggen told them he was out of the house. Bet they had some Earl Grey and sucked back a couple of scones. Bet they breathed a deep, deep sigh of relief, then lamented about how hard it was going to be to hold up their heads after what he’d done to Lash.

Qhuinn wandered down the long, winding drive. When he got to the big iron gates, they were open. After he walked through them, they closed with a clang like they’d booted him in the ass.

The summer night was hot and humid, and lightning flashed off to the north.

The storms always came from the north, he thought, and this was true in both summer and winter. In the cold months, Nor’easters could bury you with so much snow you felt like a—

Wow. He was so rattled, he was talking about the weather with himself.

He put his duffel down on the pavement at the curb.

He supposed he should text Blay now to see if he could, in fact, get picked up. Dematerializing with the weight of his duffel could be tricky and he’d never been given a car, so there you had it. He was going nowhere fast.

Just as he reached for his phone, the thing went off. It was a text from Blay: U gotta come stay w us. Let me pick u up.

He started to text his boy back, but then thought about the envelope and stopped. Putting the phone in his duffel, he slung the bag full of his shit back on his shoulder and started walking along the side of the road. He headed east, because with the way the road went, the random choice to go left took him in that direction.

Man . . . now he really was an orphan. It was like his inner suspicions had come true. He’d always thought he was adopted or some shit, because he’d never fit in with his family—and not just because of the whole mismatched-eyeball thing. He was cut