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“Three in particular,” she murmured. “To be woken. Oh, no. No. Two. One should not be woken.”
“When you were a baby, what made learning to talk worth it?” “Who am I learning to communicate with?” She was pleased that he immediately grasped the concept. She replied, “Everything.”
Blue was a hurricane lurking just offshore.
“Queens and kings Kings and queens Blue lily, lily blue Crowns and birds Swords and things Blue lily, lily blue”
She couldn’t shake the idea that she was getting ready for a fight that, somehow, she’d already fought. She couldn’t remember if she’d won the last time.
Artemus is the goal, she reminded herself. Seventeen years before, she’d let Calla convince her that he’d merely run off. Maybe she had wanted to be convinced. Deep down, she’d known he was part of something bigger. She’d known that she was part of something bigger. Probably.
She revised it now in her head: Going into timeless caverns to search for ex-boyfriend. If it looks like I will miss Blue’s graduation, send help. P.S. Pie is not a meal.
But if Mr. Gray had been willing to risk his life for what he wanted, surely she could be as brave. She wondered if he was alive. She was surprised by how much she desperately hoped that he was. She revised the note in her head.
Going into timeless caverns to search for ex-boyfriend. If it looks like I will miss Blue’s graduation, send help. P.S. Pie is still not a meal. P.P.S. Don’t forget to take the car in for the oil change. P.P.P.S. Look for me at the bottom of a mirrored lake.
P.P.P.P.S. Don’t wake the third sleeper.
Do you think this is actually real?” Blue asked.
Richard Gansey III lay on his back, gazing up at the muzzy warm blue above the branches. Sprawled in his khakis and citrus-yellow V-neck sweater, he looked indolent, tossed, a sensuous heir to the forest around him.
If everything around Gansey was soft-edged and organic, faded and homogenous, Ronan was sharp and dark and dissonant, standing out in stark relief from the woods.
Ronan made an ugly sound of scorn or mirth. He was like Cabeswater: a maker of dreams. If he didn’t know the difference between waking and sleeping, it was because the difference didn’t matter to him. “Maybe I dreamt you,” he said.
Real, but theirs, just theirs.
Blue didn’t know if she was supposed to be consumed by worry or anger. She vacillated wildly between the two, occasionally burning herself out and feeling nothing at all. How could she do this to me now?
Avide audimus. She thought of a spring flower. A lily, blue, like her name.
But sometimes it wasn’t the energy that failed Noah — it was his courage. “He’ll be a champ,” Blue said, punching Noah’s arm lightly. “I’ll be a champ,” repeated Noah.
Both Blue and Adam stared at the used equipment. It seemed impossible that Richard Campbell Gansey III would have thought to buy anything less than brand-new.
The equipment was used because Gansey had used it. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that he’d lived a life before they’d met him.
“Always safe,” Gansey translated quickly, eager to prove that he wasn’t entirely useless when it came to Latin. “The Greywaren is always safe.” The Greywaren was Ronan. Whatever they were to this forest, Ronan was more to it.
Give them to Jane.” “What?” Ronan sounded betrayed. Blue accepted the markers — round, plastic disks with arrows drawn on them. She hadn’t realized how nervous she was until she had them in her hands; it felt good to have something concrete to do. “I want you to whistle or hum or sing, Ronan, and keep track of time,” Gansey said. “You have got to be shitting me,” Ronan replied. “Me.” Gansey peered down the tunnel. “I know you know a lot of songs all the way through, and can do them the same speed and length every time. Because you had to memorize all of those tunes for the Irish music
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Because Gansey had not just vanished — he’d fallen into a hole. Thank goodness we were tied together, Blue thought.
Blue shone her flashlight into the black. “Gansey?” “I’m here.” Gansey’s voice was closer than she expected. Quieter than she expected, too. “I just — I believe I’m having a panic attack.” “You’re having a panic attack? New rule: Everyone should give four tugs before suddenly disappearing. Have you broken anything?”
Gansey whispered, “Hornets.” Her heart contracted.
“Well, you’re making me angry,” Blue said. “Adam is lying on his face in the mud for you. Ronan’s going home.” Gansey laughed tonelessly. “Keep talking, Jane.” “I don’t want to. I want you to just grab that rope and pull yourself up here like I know you’re perfectly capable of. What good does me talking do?”
Gansey closed his eyes. I saw him, Blue thought. I saw his spirit when he died, and this was not what he was wearing. This is not how it happens. It’s not now, it’s later, it’s later —
Ronan kept going, his voice louder. “No. Do you hear me, Cabeswater? You promised to keep me safe. Who are we to you? Nothing? If you let him die, that is not keeping me safe. Do you understand? If they die, I die, too.”
Ravens.
Rex Corvus, parate Regis Corvi. The Raven King, make way for the Raven King. Feathers rained down as the birds careened toward the cave mouth. Blue’s heart burst with how big it was, this moment, and no other. Then there was silence, or at least not enough sound to be heard over Blue’s thudding heart. Feathers quivered in the mud beside Adam. “Hold on,” Gansey said. “I’m coming out.”
Instead, though, as he drew nearer, his mind kept drifting back to Gansey’s voice in the cave the day before. The tremulous note in it. The fear — a fear so profound that Gansey could not bring himself to climb out of the pit, though there was nothing physically preventing him. He had not known that Richard Gansey III had it in him to be a coward.
The Camaro was shorthand for the person he had become, and he wanted, more than anything, for Malory to feel that person had been worth the trip.
That, Gansey thought, assumes Cabeswater’s priorities are the same as ours.
Gansey felt off-kilter; time played in jittery fast-forward. In the rearview mirror, he caught Blue’s eyes by accident. Strangely enough, he saw his own thoughts reflected in her face: excitement and consternation.
Gansey dangled his hand between the driver’s seat and the door. Palm up, fingers stretched back to Blue.
This was not ...
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Blue touched his fingertips. Just this — He pinched her fingers lightly, just for a moment, and then he withdrew his hand and put it back on the wheel. His chest felt warm.
This was not allowed.
“She looks like you.” “Which one?” “All of them.” “Fuck me,” Ronan said, voicing all of their thoughts. “The photo is so close,” Gansey said finally. “The quality is excellent.”
Then she called Gansey. It rang twice, three times, and then: “Hello?” He sounded boyish and ordinary. Blue asked, “Did I wake you up?” She heard Gansey fumble for and scrape up his wireframes. “No,” he lied, “I was awake.”
“I called you by accident anyway. I meant to call Congress, but your number is one off.”
“I’ve learned a lot. I’m glad you misdialed.” “Well. Easy mistake to make,” she said. “Might do it again.” A very, very long pause. She opened her mouth to fill it, then changed her mind and didn’t. She was shivering again, even though she wasn’t cold with the pillow on her legs. “Shouldn’t,” Gansey said finally. “But I hope you do.”
Gansey thought of his fingers on Blue’s and how foolish such a gesture had been. This equilibrium was so hard-won. He preferred being foolish, but he couldn’t keep on that way.
Blue shot him a withering look. There were two sorts of people: The ones who could see Noah, and the ones who couldn’t. Blue generally only got along with the former.
“I see someone just had a birthday.” “It was your birthday?” Noah demanded. Blue struggled to address the counselor instead of Noah. “What — oh — yes.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us,” muttered Noah. “We could have gone for gelato.” Noah couldn’t eat, but he liked the gelato parlor in town for reasons that escaped Blue.
He turned, mug in hand, and suddenly they were an inch apart. She could smell the mint in his mouth. She saw his throat move as he swallowed. She was furious at her body for betraying her, for wanting him differently than any of the other boys, for refusing to listen to her insistence that they were just friends.
“We’ll find her,” he said, and her chest twinged again. “I don’t know if she wants to be found.”
Then she pulled the plug on the battery that was Blue Sargent. The room went still. The papers settled. The light flickered once more and then strengthened. She heard a little gasp of a sob, and then absolute quiet. Gansey looked shocked.
“You said I could use your energy.” She knelt in front of him. She wanted to hug him, but he wasn’t really there. Without her energy, he was a paper-thin boy, he was a skull, he was air in the shape of Noah. “Not like that.” He whispered, “I’m sorry.” “Me too.”
