He had stood there in the darkness and felt like part of the clutter in the house that had gotten shut away before company had come, another useless, ugly object to be stashed in a cupboard so no one saw. And not for the first time had he wanted to take his fingers and press them into his eye sockets and ruin what had ruined him.
Abruptly, the band had gone quiet, and his father had stepped up to the microphone at the head of the parquet dance floor. As all the guests assembled, Qhuinn's mother and brother and sister came up to stand behind his father, the four of them glowing in a way that had nothing to do with all the twinkling lights.
"If I may have your attention," his father had said in the Old Language. "I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the founding families who are here tonight." Round of applause. "The other members of the Council." Round of applause. "And the rest of you who form the core of the glymera, as well as fill out mine bloodline." Round of applause. "These past ten years as leahdyre have been challenging, but we've made good progress, and I know that my successor will take the reins with a firm hand. With the king's recent ascension, it is even more paramount that our concerns be marshaled and brought forward with appropriate care. Through the Council's continuing work, we shall see our vision carried outward to the race... without regard to meritless dissention from those who do not understand the issues as fully as we do..."
There was resounding approval at this point, followed by a toast to Lash's father. Then Qhuinn's dad had cleared his throat and glanced at the three people behind him. In a slightly hoarse voice, he'd said, "It has been an honor to serve the glymera... and though I will miss my station, I would be remiss if I didn't admit that having more time for my family pleases me to no end. Verily, they are the seat of my life, and I must needs thank them for the lightness and warmth they bring unto my heart each day."
Qhuinn's mother had blown a kiss and blinked rapidly. His brother had gone all robin-breasted-proud, with hero worship filling his eyes. His sister had clapped and jumped up and down, her ringlets bouncing with joy.
In that moment, the rejection of him as a son and a brother and a family member had been so complete that no words spoken to him or about him could have added to his cringing sadness.
Qhuinn came out of the memories when his father's knock landed sharply on his door, the rap of the knuckles breaking the past's hold, snapping the scene free from his mind.
He hit send on the text, put the phone in the pocket of his shirt, and said, "Come in."
It wasn't his father who opened the door.
It was a doggen, the same butler who had told him he wasn't to go to the glymera's ball this year.
When the servant bowed, it wasn't intended as a gesture of specific respect, and Qhuinn didn't take it that way. Doggen bowed to everyone. Hell, if they interrupted a raccoon raiding the garbage, their first move before getting into all the shooing would be the old bend-at-the-waist routine.
"Guess I'm leaving," Qhuinn said as the butler quickly ran through the hand motions to ward off the evil eye.
"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 f**k 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 from different cloth. Always had been.
Part of him wanted to get all fired up angry at getting kicked out of the house, but what did he expect? He'd never been one of them, and taking down his first cousin with a hunting knife, even if he'd been totally justified, was unforgivable.
It was also going to cost his pops big green.
In cases of assault - or murder, if Lash died - if the victim was a member of the glymera, they or their bloodline were due a sum, depending on the relative worth of the injured or dead. A young, posttransition male who was the first son of one of the founding families? Only the death of a Brother or a pregnant noble female would be more expensive. And his parents were the payors, not Qhuinn, as legally you weren't considered an adult until one full year after your transition.
The good thing, he supposed, was that as he was still technically a minor, he wouldn't be sentenced to death. But even so, he was definitely going to be charged, and life as he knew it was now officially gone.
Talk about your makeovers. He was out of the glymera. Out of his family. Out of the training program.
Short of getting a botched sex change, it was hard to imagine what more could be done to shit on his identity.
As it stood now, he had until dawn to decide where he would go to wait to hear what was going to happen to him. Blay's would be the obvious choice, except for one big, fat, hairy problem: Sheltering an outcast from the glymera would totally H-bomb that family's social status, so that was a no-go. And John couldn't take him in either. The guy lived with the Brothers, and that meant his residence was so top-secret he couldn't have visitors, much less semipermanent overnight guests.