One Wish

He told Miles in the library, because it was the room with the heaviest door.

It was nearly midnight. The rain had followed them home from the cemetery and now streaked the tall windows in long silver threads. Adrian stood behind the desk with a folder of papers, his coat still on, an Edinburgh brochure and an unsigned enrollment form fanned out neatly in front of him, as if paperwork could be a shield.

He heard the knock he had been expecting.

He also heard Miles do something he had never done in his life: knock, and wait.

"Come in."

Miles stepped through the door slowly. He had changed out of the bloodied shirt, but the shadows under his eyes said he hadn't slept. His hands hung loose at his sides. He looked at the brochure on the desk, then at Adrian, and said, quietly, "So it's true."

"Henry told you."

"Henry told me nothing. Marcus's replacement told me, three times, that I wasn't to be left unaccompanied after eight." A short, empty laugh. "I wondered what I'd done. Then I saw the plane tickets in your study."

"Miles. Sit down."

"I'll stand."

"Please."

"You're sending me away?" The words were flat. "Don't bother knocking anymore? Is that what this is? Are you leaving me behind again?"

*Again.* The word cut. Adrian made himself meet those amber eyes.

"I'm not abandoning you."

"That's what it looks like."

"The plan was always to send you abroad when you were old enough." It was a lie, and a poor one. "It was your father's wish that you see the world. It's a good school. The city is only so large, Miles. How much room does one person need?"

"You think it's great," Miles said, almost to himself.

"I think it's the best thing for you."

"You're brilliant." A strange smile. "You should see the world. That's what you've been telling yourself, isn't it? That you're doing this for me."

"I am doing this for you."

"Will you send me away, then," Miles said very softly, "if I ask you not to?"

Adrian said nothing.

He saw the answer land on Miles's face. He saw something small and bright go out behind his eyes, and he wanted, with a ferocity that frightened him, to take it back.

Miles nodded once. "Fine."

"Miles—"

"Fine. I'll go." He stepped forward until his thighs touched the front of the desk. He leaned his weight on both hands, bringing their faces level across the polished wood. "Then you owe me."

"Owe you what?"

"Everything." His voice was low and steady. "You owe me eight years. You owe me every night you didn't look at me. You owe me for being born wrong and growing up wrong and loving wrong, and for being the only person on earth you can't forgive for it." His throat worked. "It's my fault. I know. I was born wrong. I should never have been his son."

"Don't say that."

"What if I call you Daddy?"

The world stopped.

"What?" Adrian said, barely audible.

"What if I call you Daddy?" Miles repeated, and now there was something unbearably tender in his face, something raw and half-joking and entirely sincere. "Then you can't shake me off. If you're my father, you're responsible for me. For life. You'd have to keep me. You couldn't send me anywhere."

"Enough."

"Why? It's the same rule, isn't it? You wouldn't abandon your son."

"I said *enough*." Adrian slammed his palm flat against the desk, and the lamp jumped. He was breathing hard. His voice, when it came, was lower and rougher than he intended. "You're still young. When you grow up you'll see. A lot of feelings turn out wrong. Things that feel like the end of the world—they're not worth—"

"Don't give me that, Adrian."

"Miles."

"Don't." The word was flat and final. "Don't tell me what I feel. Don't tell me it'll pass. You think I haven't tried? You think I didn't spend four years trying to hate you for it, trying to want somebody else, trying to be a normal boy?" He straightened. His face had gone pale and calm and terribly distant. "It never passed. It just got louder."

Adrian could not speak.

"Fine," Miles said. "Send me away."

He turned toward the door.

"Then I don't want you either."

It was said without heat. That was what made it a blade.

The door closed behind him with a soft, polite click.

---

He was gone by morning.

"Sir." Marcus's voice came sharp over the phone at 5:50 a.m., the sound of a man who had run up three flights of stairs. "The young master's gone. His bed hasn't been slept in. The car is still in the garage. His phone's on the dresser. He took nothing."

Adrian was already out of bed, already reaching for his gun. "How long?"

"The night guards say he left through the east garden around one. Nobody saw him go."

"Seal every road out of the city." He had never heard his own voice sound like that, flat and ferocious and utterly without bargaining. "Docks. Train stations. The airport. Private airfields. Every bus terminal. Not one gap. I want his location in half an hour."

"Sir, the entire—"

"*Half an hour*, Marcus."

He did not eat. He did not dress properly. He stood in the cold command room in the basement with a hundred monitors glowing before him, a fist pressed against his mouth, and for the first time in twenty-two years he understood what it was like to be the one at the doorway of the burning house.

*Please*, he thought. He did not know to whom. *Please, not him. Not him too.*

At 6:21, Marcus came back on the line.

"Sir. We found him."

Adrian's heart gave one hard, painful thump.

"It's Lane."

"Lane Whitfield." The name tasted of ash. "The boy with the four broken ribs."

"He was discharged two days ago. His family has a boat in the marina." Marcus hesitated. "It left the dock at three. Four men with him. And—" He stopped.

"And?"

"The young master's car wasn't taken. But a security camera on the east road shows him getting into a gray sedan at 1:20. Voluntarily."

"Voluntarily?"

"Sir, I think he was *invited*. I think Lane told him something that made him go."

Adrian closed his eyes.

*He harassed him*, he thought. *He's the one who wrote the letters. He's the reason for the dorm, the broken ribs, the whole damned week.*

And Adrian had sent the boy running straight into his arms.

"Where's the boat?"

"Heading out past the breakwater. We can intercept at—"

"Turn around."

"Sir?"

"Tell everyone to close in." The ice in his voice had gone somewhere past fury, into a quiet and absolute calm. "Every boat. Every man. Nobody comes back from that deck until I've seen what's left of him."

He took the stairs three at a time.

"And Marcus?"

"Sir?"

"If a single hair on his head is harmed," Adrian said, "I'll kill them. All of them. Slowly."