* * *
The Paddingtons drove away in their little yellow car, soon nothing more than two red dots disappearing into the trees. Adonis watched them go from the manor’s roof. If only they had had more time to talk with Missus Paddington, to convince her…
“Father?” said Leander, behind him. His eldest child had always been the most task-oriented. Short-sighted on occasion, but that was useful too, when Adonis over-thought matters.
“We leave,” said Adonis. “Tonight.”
“And the bitch?”
“Missus Paddington,” corrected Adonis. “Hopefully she will remember what we said. Perhaps she will even stay away. That is all we can do for her at present. See to our departure, Leander. I shall join you once I have said goodbye.”
“Goodbye, father?”
Adonis looked over Archi. At the lights of houses: homes where families lived out their lives without the interference of the Mainland. A safe place. He had watched them live and grow, have families, die. He’d watched the cycle over and over, but it was always new, every time. Different people, different lives, but always special.
“This is my home,” he said. “I might never see her again.”