… And shot through the air, slamming back against the wall.

He rolled to his feet and stood up slowly, face drained of color, rigid and trembling. “I told you never to use your ‘witch powers’ on me,” he grated, “and I told you why!” He straightened to his full height, feeling the rage swell within him.

Geoffrey and Cordelia scurried to hide behind Gwen’s skirts. She gathered Magnus to her, but he kept his face toward his father, terror in his eyes, trembling, but determined to protect.

Rod stared at them, all united against him, ready to pick him up with their magic and hurl him into his grave. His eyes narrowed, pinning them with his glare; then his eyes lost focus as he reached down inside himself—deep down, reaching across an abyss—to the psi powers that had lain so long dormant, but which had been awakened by the projective telepathy of Lord Kern, in another universe, one in which magic worked. His powers weren’t as readily accessible as his family’s; he couldn’t work magic just by willing it, as easily as thinking, but once he’d drawn them up, his were at least as great as theirs. He called those powers up now, feeling their strength build within him.

“Mother,” came Magnus’s voice, across a huge void, “we must…”

“Nay!” Gwen said fiercely. “He is thy father, whom thou dost love—when this fit’s not on him.”

What did that mean! The powers paused in their building…

A smaller figure entered his blurred field of vision, to the side and a little in front of the family group, gazing up at him, head tilted to the side—three-year-old Gregory. “Daddy is’n’ there,” he stated.

That hit Rod like a bucketful of cold water; the complete, calm, sanity of the child’s tone—so open, so reasonable—and the totally alien quality of the words. His eyes focused in a stare at his youngest son, and fear hollowed his vitals—fear, and a different anger under it; anger at the futurians who had kidnapped him and the rest of his family away from this child while Gregory was still a baby. The desertion, Rod feared, had totally warped the boy’s personality, making him quiet, indrawn, brooding, and sometimes, even weird. His gaze welded to Gregory’s face, his fear for Gregory burying his anger at the rest of the family; it ebbed, and was gone.