The Dream Thieves (10 page)

Farther down the aisle, Gansey suggested to the phone, “You could come stay at Monmouth. For the night.”

Ronan laughed sharply, loud enough for Gansey to hear. Adam was militant about staying at his place, even though it was horrible. Even if the room had been a five-star accommodation, it would have been hateful. Because it wasn’t the bruised home Adam desperately and shamefully missed, nor was it Monmouth Manufacturing, the new home Adam’s pride wouldn’t allow. Sometimes Ronan thought Adam was so used to the right way being painful that he doubted any path that didn’t come with agony.

Gansey’s back was turned to them. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ramirez? I didn’t talk to anyone at the church. Yes, twenty-four hundred dollars. I know that part. I —”

This meant they were talking about the Aglionby letter; both Ronan and Gansey had gotten matching ones.

Now Gansey’s voice was low and furious. “At some point it’s not cheati — no, you’re right. You’re right, I absolutely don’t understand. I don’t know and I won’t ever.”

Probably, Adam had made the connection between his rent change and the tuition raise. It wasn’t a complicated assumption, and he was clever. It was easy, too, to hang it on Gansey. If Adam had been thinking straight, though, he would’ve considered how it was Ronan who had infinite connections to St. Agnes. And how whoever was behind the rent change would have had to enter a church office with both a wad of cash and a burning intention to persuade a church lady to lie about a fake tax assessment. Taken apart that way, it seemed to have
Ronan
written all over it. But one of the marvelous things about being Ronan Lynch was that no one ever expected him to do anything nice for anyone.

“It wasn’t me,” Gansey said, “but I’m glad it happened that way. Fine. Take from that what you will.”

The thing was, Ronan knew what a face looked like, just before it was about to break. He’d seen it in the mirror often enough. Adam had fracture lines all over him.

Next to Ronan, Noah said, “Oh!” in a very surprised way.

Then he flickered out.

The snow globe crashed onto the ground where Noah’s feet used to be. It left a damp, wobbly ellipse as it rolled away. Chainsaw, shocked, bit Ronan. He’d squeezed her as he leapt back from the sound.

The clerk said, “Come
on
.”

She hadn’t seen the travesty. But she clearly knew one had occurred.

“Don’t get excited,” Ronan said loudly. “I’ll pay for it.”

He would have never admitted how his heart pounded in his chest.

Gansey turned sharply, his face puzzled. The scene — Noah absent, ugly snow globe rolled half under a shelf — offered no immediate explanation. To Adam, he said, “Hold on.”

Abruptly, Ronan’s entire body went cold. Not a little chilly, but utterly cold. The sort of cold that dries the mouth and slows the blood. His toes went numb, and then his fingers. Chainsaw let out a terrified creaking sound.

She cried,
“Kerah!”

He laid a frozen hand over her head, comforting her, though he was not comforted.

Then Noah reappeared in a violent sputter, like the power crackling back on. His fingers clutched Ronan’s arm. Cold seeped from the point of contact as Noah dragged heat to become visible. An absolutely perfect breath of Henrietta summer air dissipated around them, the scent of the forest when Noah had died.

They all knew that Noah could drop the temperature in the room when he first manifested, but this scale was something new.

“Whoa! Way to ask first, asshole!” Ronan said. But he didn’t push him off. “What was
that
?”

Noah’s eyes were wide.

Gansey told Adam, “I’ll call you back.”

The clerk said, “Are you boys done yet?”

“Nearly!” Gansey called back in his reassuringly honeyed voice, shoving his phone in his back pocket. “I’ll be up for paper towels in a minute!
What’s happening here?
” This last bit was hissed to Ronan and Noah.

“Noah took a personal day.”

“I lost …” Noah struggled for words. “There wasn’t air. It went
away
. The — the line!”

“The ley line?” Gansey asked.

Noah nodded once, a sloppy thing that was sort of a shrug at the same time. “There was nothing … left for me.” Releasing Ronan, he shook out his hands.

“You’re welcome, man,” Ronan snarled. He still couldn’t feel his toes.

“Thanks. I didn’t mean to … you were there. Oh, the
glitter
.”

“Yes,” Ronan replied crossly. “The glitter.”

Gansey swiftly retrieved the leaking snow globe and disappeared for the front counter. He returned with a receipt and a roll of paper towels.

Ronan asked, “What was up with Parrish?”

“He saw a woman in his apartment. He said she was trying to talk to him. He seemed a little freaked out. I think the ley line must be surging.”

He didn’t say,
Or maybe something terrible happened to Adam that day he sacrificed himself in Cabeswater. Maybe he’s messed up all of Henrietta by waking up the ley line.
Because they couldn’t talk about that. Just like they couldn’t talk about Adam stealing the Camaro that night. Or about him basically doing everything Gansey had asked him not to. If Adam was stupid about his pride, Gansey was stupid about Adam.

Ronan echoed, “Ley line surging. Right. Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it.”

All the whimsy of Dollar City was ruined. As Gansey led the way out, Noah said to Ronan, “I know why you’re mad.”

Ronan sneered at him, but his pulse heaved. “Tell me then, Prophet.”

Noah said, “It’s not my job to tell other people’s secrets.”

I
was thinking you could come with me,” Gansey said carefully, two hours later. He pressed the phone to his ear with one shoulder as he unrolled a massive scroll of paper across the floor of Monmouth Manufacturing. The numerous low lamps through the room made an array of searchlights across the paper. “To the party at my mom’s. There might be an internship in there, if you’re good at it.”

On the other end of the phone, Adam didn’t immediately reply. It was hard to say if he was thinking about it or being irritated about the suggestion.

Gansey kept unrolling the paper. It was a high-resolution print of the ley line as seen from a casually interested satellite. It had cost a fortune to get the images spliced and then printed in color, but it would all be worth it if he spotted some oddity. If nothing else, they could use it to track their exploration. Also, it was pretty.

From Ronan’s room, he heard Noah’s laugh. He and Ronan were throwing various objects from the second-story window to the parking lot below. There was a terrific crash.

Ronan’s voice rose, exasperated. “Not
that
one, Noah.”

“I’d have to see if I could get off work,” Adam replied. “I think I can. Do you think I should?”

Relieved, Gansey said, “Oh, yes.” He dragged his desk chair onto the corner of the print. It kept trying to roll back up on itself. He put a copy of
Trioedd Ynys Prydein
on the other corner.

“Have you heard from Blue?” Adam asked.

“Tonight? She has work, doesn’t she?” Roll, roll, roll. He nudged it with his foot to keep it straight. It was surprisingly satisfying to see acres and acres of forest and mountains and rivers unrolling across his floorboards. If he were a god, he thought, this would be precisely how he’d create his new world. Unrolling it like carpet.

“Yeah. I just … has she ever said anything to you about me?”

“Like what?”

A long silence. “About kissing, I guess.”

Gansey paused in his rolling. As a point of fact, Blue had confessed a lot about kissing. Namely, that she’d been told her entire life that she’d kill her true love if she kissed him. It was strange to remember that moment. He’d doubted her, he recalled. He wouldn’t have now. Blue was a fanciful but sensible thing, like a platypus, or one of those sandwiches that had been cut into circles for a fancy tea party.

She’d also asked Gansey not to tell Adam about her confession.

“Kissing?” he repeated evasively. “What’s going on?”

Another crash from Ronan’s room, followed by diabolical laughter. Gansey wondered if he should stop them before vehicles with strobe lights did.

“I dunno. She doesn’t want to,” Adam said. “I don’t blame her, I guess. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Have you asked her why she doesn’t want to?” Gansey asked, though he didn’t want to hear the answer. He was abruptly tired of the conversation.

“She said she was very
young
.”

“She probably is.” Gansey had no idea how old Blue was. He knew she’d just finished eleventh grade. Maybe she was sixteen. Maybe she was eighteen. Maybe she was twenty-two and just very short and remedial.

“I dunno, Gansey. Does that sound like a real thing? You’ve dated way more than me.”

“I’m not dating
now.
”

“Except for Glendower.”

Gansey couldn’t argue that point. “Look, Adam, I don’t think it’s about you. I think she likes you fine.”

Adam clearly didn’t like this answer, though, because he didn’t reply. It gave Gansey enough time to remember the moment he’d first approached her at Nino’s on Adam’s behalf. How disastrous it had been. Since then, he’d considered a dozen different ways he could’ve done it better.

Which was foolish. It had all worked out, hadn’t it? She was with Adam now. Whether or not Gansey had made a first-class prat of himself the moment they met didn’t change anything.

“No way, man!” Noah shouted, but he didn’t sound like he meant it. His words were most of the way to a laugh already. “No way —”

Gansey kicked the rolled print hard enough that it teetered crookedly out to its end, yards away, out of the circles of light. Standing, he walked to the windows on the eastern wall of the factory. Leaning an elbow on the frame, he pressed his forehead against the glass, to gaze on the great, black spread of Henrietta below.

Once, he had dreamt that he found Glendower. It wasn’t the actual finding, but the day after. He wouldn’t forget the sensation of the dream. It hadn’t been joy, but instead, the absence of pain. He couldn’t forget that lightness. The freedom.

“I don’t want things to get ugly,” Adam said finally.

“Are they ugly?”

“No. I guess not. But somehow they always seem to get that way.”

Gansey watched tiny car lights diminish as they left Henrietta, reminding him of his miniature version of the town. An early, illicit firework sprayed up in the foreground. “Well, she’s not really like a
girl
. I mean, sure she’s a girl. But it’s not like when I was dating someone. It’s
Blue
. You could just ask her. We see her every day. Do you want me to talk to her?”

This was something he definitely, 100 percent felt certain in his guts that he had no interest in doing.

“I’m really bad at talking, Gansey,” Adam said earnestly. “And you’re really good at it. Maybe — maybe if it just comes up natural?”

Gansey’s shoulders collapsed; his breath fogged the glass and vanished. “Of course.”

“Thanks.” Adam paused. “I just want something to be simple.”

So do I, Adam. So do I.

Ronan’s bedroom door burst open. Hanging on the door frame, Ronan leaned out to peer past Gansey. He was doing that thing where he looked like both the dangerous Ronan he was now and the cheerier Ronan he had been when Gansey had first met him. “Is Noah out here?”

“Hold on,” Gansey told Adam. Then, to Ronan: “Why would he be?”

“No reason. Just no reason.” Ronan slammed his door.

Gansey asked Adam, “Sorry. You still have that suit for the party?”

Adam’s response was buried in the sound of the second-story door falling open. Noah slouched in. In a wounded tone, he said, “He threw me out the window!”

Ronan’s voice sang out from behind his closed door: “You’re already dead!”

“What’s happening over there?” Adam asked.

Gansey eyed Noah. He didn’t look any worse for wear. “I have no idea. You should come over.”

“Not tonight,” replied Adam.

I’m losing him
, Gansey thought.
I’m losing him to Cabeswater.
He had thought that by staying away from the forest, he’d keep the old Adam — put off the consequences of whatever had happened that night when everything started to go awry. But maybe it just didn’t matter. Cabeswater would take him regardless.

Gansey said, “Well. Just make sure you have a red tie.”