I remember when they came in—I was eleven. I was at home, in our old house, alone in the kitchen, eating a beef pie that Vera had made for me. My dad had just got remarried. Mordelia was a newborn.

My fangs broke through my gums in the middle of a bite. They sliced into my lips. I ran and hid in the bathroom—I didn’t know what was happening. There was blood on my face and hands. I licked away all that I could, then I went looking for more.

Daphne was in the sitting room.

Mordelia was in the nursery.

We had a dog . . .

This is an animal response, I think now, and you are not an animal.

I think about contracting. Withdrawing.

I think about how Fiona was the one to find me that night. I was hiding in the barn.

It was late, by then. I was covered in blood. More blood. I burrowed into the straw when I heard her coming.

I thought they were probably all hunting me.

I was glad that it would be Fiona to find me, and not my father.

She saw the dog before she saw me.

“Good on you, Basil.”

I sat very still. I didn’t breathe.

“I mean it,” she said. “What a fucking relief. Come on, come out.”

I didn’t move.

“Don’t make me cast on you,” she said.

She was right; that would be ignominious. I stood up, brushing away the straw.

Fiona pointed her wand at me anyway. “Clean as a whistle!”

The blood disappeared from my new Watford jumper.

Fiona walked over to me and took me by the chin. She turned my head this way and that. The fangs had long retracted. The cuts on my lips were already healing.

She put her hands on my shoulders.

“You did well,” she said. “I’m proud of you.”

“Fiona,” I whispered.

“Shhhh. You mustn’t say it, Basil, ever.”

“But Fiona—” I cried.

“Hush now. Look at me. You did well, darling.” She shook my shoulders. “I’m so proud of you.”

“But—I—Father’s dog.”

“That was very resourceful of you, Basil. Strong. Smart. I expect no less from Natasha Pitch’s son.”

I sobbed. Fiona shook me again.

“It was just a dog,” she said. “And that over there is just a horse. Those are just sheep out in the fields. And deer in the woods. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“I know you can handle this, Baz. You’re a Pitch first and foremost. Everything else is a footnote.”

I nodded again.

She wiped my cheeks with her thumbs. “You tell me if you need help, all right? If you get yourself into a scrape. You come to me, not your father—and not Daphne Grimm, all right?”

“Yes.”

“I couldn’t be prouder of you, Basil. I just couldn’t.”