“This is good, Quentin. But you must learn to control it.”

Quentin said nothing. Did nothing. He felt ashamed, disgusted, he wanted to be sick.

Nothing here was right. Nothing was good.

So why had he felt such pleasure?

He remembered touching himself once, some years ago. The boys at school were so eager to talk about how great theirs were, and he dithered around with the idea for weeks before he summoned the courage, but once he did it he wet the bed for weeks after. It felt bad and good, it was a violation and a pleasure. It was wrong, and he knew then that sex was wrong too.

And it was.

It was vile.

There was blood and pain, screams and shame, and he would never do it again. Not if he had the choice.

He’d never had the choice.

His body moved. It did this. He didn’t have to intervene at all. Father picked him up as though he were something precious, and if Quentin had any thought to spare to that it would have made him laugh.

But for now it was best to remain absent. The pain was too much. The sensation of something leaking out of him was grotesque.

He saw light in the darkness. Felt the cool breeze as it dried blood and semen to his skin.

“I don’t know whether you’re fortunate or not,” his father said quietly. “To have no memory of this. I used to wish that I could forget it, but then it just became something we did on my birthday and that was that. I almost resented its absence when I was nineteen and it didn’t come.” He held Quentin in his arms and his telekinesis, and stood still in the dark. “I know you’re in there. You must be. Calm yourself. I will teach you to control this power, and your others, too. Rest now.”

Rest was good.

* * *

A door creaked open.

“Oh, Tintin,” Mama’s voice was distant. “My poor baby boy. No more,” she breathed. “It’s over. I promise you, it’s over.”

Quentin briefly wondered whether this was a dream.

He heard her cry, and for a moment he felt like he’d heard her cry many times over the years. “This is all my fault,” she gasped. “I shouldn’t have ever agreed to the wedding. You should never have been born. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop crying,” said Father. “It’s unbecoming of you.”

No. Quentin wasn’t going to stir now. Not with him here. He drifted away again, content to leave his body behind.

“What did you do to him?”

“What needed to be done.”

“It was never this bad before. You broke three of his ribs, Hieronymus! The doctor says it will be weeks before he’s fully recovered! What do you intend to tell Morty and Archie?”

“Car accident. You know he won’t be laid up that long. He’s robust, he can take it.”

The words came and went, as though someone twiddled the volume control on a television.

“But he’s eighteen now. It’s over. You’ve done what you needed to. You promised me this would stop when he turned eighteen. You promised!”

“It’s over,” the duke rumbled. “You knew the price of this match, Elizabeth.”

“No! No! You said that he would be hurt. You said there would be blood. But you never said how much! And you never said you wouldn’t stop no matter how much I begged you to!”

“Do you think I wanted to continue?” Anger touched Father’s voice and made Quentin glad he wasn’t there. “Do you think I relished any of this? I did what had to be done for the future of our line. And perhaps if your family had this level of fortitude you would not have been resigned to marry into mine.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Mama sounded horrified.

Father’s voice calmed. “You married for power, Elizabeth. But like most who seek power, you did not like the price.”

There was a sharp slap.

“You married me for my power.” Mama sounded livid. “This won’t go on,” she hissed. “If you lay a finger on him again, I’ll ruin you.”

“Elizabeth, dear, if you ever stand in my way, I’ll ensure that when they find your body, there won’t be a mark on it.”

Quentin’s loathing of his father coalesced and condensed into something new.

Something hard.

For all that he feared and hated his father, there was some measure of respect there. But no longer. It evaporated.

Father had threatened to kill Mama.

Or was he dreaming it?

“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.

Quentin’s eyes flickered open for a fleeting moment. He saw them there, mere feet from his bedside, Mama white as a sheet and Father’s eyes on him in an unspoken command.

Quentin wavered, then drifted back to the safety of the darkest recesses of his mind where it was safe.

* * *

“I told you once that I would teach you magic,” Father said.

Quentin frowned at him. He had to take slow, shallow breaths or his ribs would trigger another wave of agony, but for some reason having his father sit so close to his bed and say words like those made a deep sense of unease stir in his gut.

“That’s ridiculous,” he wheezed.

“No.” Father sounded resigned. “It’s taken too long for us to get here. We cannot waste more time. Tell me what you see.”

Quentin watched warily as Father reached into the breast pocket of his jacket.

Father withdrew something in his fist and extended it toward Quentin. When his fingers unfurled, there was a stone in his palm which glowed like the afterimage of staring at the sun. It was a darkness so bright that it made him itch with its wrongness, and he recoiled so fast that he heard his ribs grind together and felt the knife-pain of them digging at his chest. He whimpered in fear and in pain, and wind tore through the bedroom.

Father’s fingers closed around the stone, but it was too late.

Quentin withdrew.

* * *

There was no way of knowing which way was up any more. There was nothing left in his world but a cocoon of violence. He sucked up all the energy his surroundings had to offer and spat out vitriol to strengthen his protection.

He would leave.

You promised you’d never leave.

The tiny objection shriveled and died under the glare of his fury.

He had been violated. Desecrated. Filled with filth and turned inside out, and he wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

He took a step, and the cocoon moved with him.

Another.

After the third he realized that using his legs was a waste of time and effort. He picked them off the ground so that the dirt couldn’t touch him anymore.

Earth moved beneath his feet as he carried himself forward. He was blind. Deaf. Insensate. If there was a world out there he was not part of it, but there was something he could do. Something he could take control of at last.

Something to wash all the shame away.

He could kill his father.

He would cut a swathe across this world until he found what he sought, and then he would destroy the man who had destroyed him. Woe betide anyone who got in his way.

And once he was done with his vengeance, he could rest in peace himself. Leave this world filled with nothing but pain and sorrow and go on to something better. Something peaceful. Beautiful.

There was rot on this Earth, and he would burn it out until there was nothing left of it but ash.