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Ronan’s head was in his hands, fingers scratching desperately across his buzzcut, so he didn’t see the moment Gansey opened his eyes. His senses were numb: the smell of blood mingled with rain and autumn air; Orphan Girl's screams, quiet now but still pounding in his ears; a phone somewhere rang for the fourth or was it the tenth time; the collective sound of four people breathing, where one was not.            Gone, gone, gone.            What had been the point? He’d already had his magic, and all Gansey had asked for was his own. Ronan had wanted it for him, but not for himself. All he’d wanted was Gansey, and the magic, and Adam, and the others, and to be alive. And now Gansey was dead. Pointless, stupid, fucking waste –            He screamed soundlessly, lips and fingers numb with the effort of silence.            And then Blue gasped.            Ronan looked up from his hands.            Gansey was moving his head to the side, where Blue now crouched over him, crying, one hand over her mouth and one on his chest. Their eyes were locked. Ronan looked up at Henry, who was still standing, for once speechless, and unmoving. He looked at Adam who was sat on the floor between the car and Gansey, head on his knees, as if he hadn’t heard anything.            Ronan gulped. “Gansey.” He said it like it was a fact, loud enough for Adam to hear. Adam’s head raised and he looked over at Ronan. It took everything in Ronan to not look back. Out of the corner of his eye Adam looked over at the now moving Gansey and got to his feet. Ronan did the same. He and Adam and Henry walked over to the pair on the ground. “Oh my god,” whispered Adam.            “It worked?” said Henry, like it was a question.            But it had. Gansey, whose hand had been grasped in Blue’s hair, head against her chest, sat back and moved his elbows back as if to sit. Ronan lunged forward and grabbed his arm, holding him steady on the ground. “Stay still,” he growled, “you’ve just been fucking resurrected.”            Adam’s figure appeared, holding tightly to Gansey’s other arm. “And you know what they say about being resurrected,” he said, “you probably shouldn’t overdo it.”            A sound escaped from Blue’s mouth and she lowered her hand, one still on his chest. “I can’t believe it.”            Henry came up to the front of Gansey and crouched, one hand reaching out to land gently on the top of Gansey’s knee. “I can,” he said, smiling.            Gansey laughed. It was small, shallow, pained, but he was there, and he was breathing, and they were all with him, crouched on concrete, and the blood had never been there, and there was a stream of rain pouring frantically down the road, brought alive by headlights, and they were alive. Blue felt incredibly important, in the driver’s seat of Henry’s car, though she kind of hated that feeling. Henry was sat next to her, having asked her to drive because “he wasn’t sure his heart could take anymore stress”, Gansey sound asleep in the back. He’d clearly been exhausted, and not up to conversation, as the four of them helped him up and bundled him gently into the back of the car, the keys still in the ignition. Henry fistbumped Ronan, and she’d heard him muttering to Adam, “are you ok?” before climbing into the passenger seat next to her.            “So,” he said now, breaking the silence that had so far accompanied them. “This is what you get up to in your spare time?”            She thought it was a funny enough joke, but had no spare lung capacity let alone brain function to laugh. “I can’t believe he’s… okay,” she said, gulping.            She saw Henry tap the dashboard with restless fingers. “I have about a million questions,” he said, and hurried on before she could interrupt, “no no, not now, I know, not now. I just… wow.”            “I know,” she said, and she did. Adam waved them off and turned around to find Ronan checking on Orphan Girl in the back of the BMW. She was crying softly, and he was hugging her gently, and Adam found he could hardly bear to watch. Instead he scuffed the ground and walked up to the spot where Gansey had died, in pretence of checking they hadn’t left anything behind. He touched his eyes gingerly; they were throbbing in pain, but they were ok. One of his hands felt broken, but he didn’t think it was. He inspected it carefully; bones didn’t look out of place. Suddenly Ronan’s hand was on his and he jerked back, putting as much distance between his hands and Ronan as possible. His heart was slamming against his chest and he looked up to Ronan, who had a vacant expression on his face.            “I guess your hands are fine then,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s go.” He turned and walked back to the car, dropping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door. Adam followed. Blue pulled in front of Fox Way, the BMW not far behind her. They hadn’t agreed to go straight there, but she guessed it made sense. Only a few hours ago they’d all been here, regrouping, strategising, being together. Blue wanted desperately to take Gansey, and Adam, and god Ronan, all to the hospital, but she had no idea what the damage even was, and was aware that their raven boy egos might not permit it. In that moment she allowed herself a small smile, eyes closed, and whispered, “damn raven boys.”            “What’s that now?” asked Henry next to her.            She smiled at him, checking Gansey was still asleep in the back. “Henry tell me something – if you were resurrected, or had attacked your own limbs, or had been half unmade, would you let me take you to the hospital?”            Henry considered it. “Hospitals are dirty, infectious places –” he began.            “Forget it,” Blue said, and got out the car. She opened the back of the door and placed a hand on Gansey’s shoulder. “Gansey?” she asked, and heard the word tremble slightly. She had never felt more relief and worry in her entire life.            Gansey lifted his head, shaking it slightly, and tried to open his eyes. They fluttered, and then closed. He frowned from the effort. “Blue?” His voice was soft. Awake, but barely.            Blue gulped. “Let’s get you inside.” She pulled at his arm, helping him out the car, and Ronan appeared, putting one of Gansey’s arms over his shoulder. “I’ve got it,” he said, and walked Gansey slowly to the front door, where Adam was waiting to help them over the threshold.            Blue locked the car and stood there for a moment, staring at a streetlight-lit puddle on the ground, only realising Henry’s arms were around her when it was too late to object. She grasped him back and cried. Any arguments the five of them might have had about hospitals were short lived, because as soon as they were inside 300 Fox Way Maura took over. First grasping a tear-stained Blue in her arms, muttering “for god’s sake” over and over again, and then pressing her hands to Henry’s, and then Adam’s face, even Ronan’s, staring into their eyes, moving her head from side to side, before allowing them to pass, muttering “fine, fine”, as they did so. Calla put one hand to Gansey’s forehead on the sofa, and Blue wasn’t sure if she was using her psychic powers to get answers or whether she was just taking his temperature. Something satisfied her and she nodded. “Rest, and time, is all this one needs, do you agree Maura?”            “Yes,” Maura said. They were all in the living room now. Ronan stood at the window, facing the street but eyes darting back and forth to Gansey. Adam was slumped in an armchair, looking exhausted. Blue was still at Maura’s side, the two of them clasped together in the middle of the room. Henry was standing awkwardly in the doorway; he didn’t know Blue’s family, or her house, or even where he stood in this group yet. Blue’s heart panged for him, but she didn’t have time to think about that now.            “The sofa’s hardly ideal but I don’t want to move him if he’s sleeping,” continued Maura. She checked the time on the clock. 4:55am. “I’ll take the other three to the hospital,” she said, still looking at Calla. Ronan looked up as if to argue, but something in Maura’s voice made it clear there’d be no room for argument. She looked at Ronan, daring him to speak, but he didn’t. “From what Blue’s said the three of you are lucky to be alive.” She sounded furious. “Adam might have broken his hand, Blue needs her stitches redone, and you… I don’t even know what you are. But you nearly died, and you are going to the hospital.”            Ronan kept eye contact with her for a daring ten seconds before dropping his gaze to the floor. “Orphan Girl,” he began.            “She can sleep in my bed, if she’d like,” said Blue. “She’ll be safe here.”            Ronan nodded and left the room, shuffling by Henry.            Maura looked at Henry apologetically, as if noticing him for the first time. “I’m sorry my dear,” she said, “I’m not sure we’ve even met. But you’ll be ok. You’ll work it out.” She smiled at him. Henry looked slightly alarmed.            “Thanks?” he said, though smiled as if he found her charming already. “Um, I’m Henry.”            “Do you want a lift home?” she asked.            “No thanks,” he replied. “That’s my car out front. At some point we’ll have to go find Gansey’s Camaro – it’s stranded somewhere – he’ll never forgive us – but I’d like to sit with him while you guys are at the hospital if that’s alright. You know, in case he wakes up.”            Maura looked at Calla, who nodded approval of the plan. Henry moved to the armchair as Adam got out of it, and settled into it, as if getting comfy for the night. Not that there was much of night left. Calla looked at Henry, and then went to the kitchen, probably to get tea Blue thought.            The rest of them left the house quietly. There were still no words; nothing she could think of to comfort, or to console, or to release the worries they were all carrying. She did manage to pull gently on Adam’s sleeve as they left the house, and he looked at her quizzically, before putting an arm around her shoulder and kissing the side of the head. Blue put an arm around his waist and squeezed him slightly. The two of them got into the back of the BMW, and reached for each other again, as Ronan pulled away from the pavement, Maura in the passenger seat, driving away from Gansey. It felt so wrong, and so Blue clung to Adam, hearing his heartbeat in her chest, and closed her eyes. The upshot of it was that Adam had sprained his wrist, the one he’d pinned behind himself on the picnic table, and fractured the knuckles on his other hand, and had bad scratching and bruising on his face and, well, everywhere; Ronan also had many bruises, and as the doctor checked his throat carefully he complained bitterly “This is just a normal Saturday for me doc,” dripping with contempt; it didn’t take long for Blue’s stitches to be redone, and she closed her eyes while the doctors worked, Maura’s hand on hers the entire time. Otherwise they were deemed completely fine by the hospital staff, if slightly judgmentally considering the three teenagers had been brought to hospital after a clearly violent fight at five in the morning by a woman in a hippy dress; the sun had risen by the time they walked out of the hospital. Ronan drove them home.            Adam said to Blue, “does it hurt?” meaning her stitches.            Blue shrugged. “Not really.” She nodded to where his knuckles were in bandages. “Does that?”            “Not really,” said Adam. They both smiled.            “Aren’t you gonna ask me if it hurts?” asked Ronan from the front.            “It’s gonna take doctors longer than a couple of hours to work out what’s wrong with you,” Blue retorted. Adam laughed, once. She smiled in surprise.            “Maggot,” Ronan grumbled, but she could see the side of a grin in the rear-view mirror.            She smiled, and gripped Adam’s hand, looking out the window at the sun rising over Henrietta. They were together, and they were going back to Gansey, and they were alive.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ronan waited til they were back at Monmouth to call Declan. Blue had stayed at Fox Way, Maura calling the school and Nino’s to inform them that her daughter wouldn’t be in the rest of the week; Adam had tried to go to work but after a look from Maura had called the factory to say he had to take the day off. He was at his own home and hopefully sleeping by now. Henry had gone as well, not sure enough yet to invite himself back to Monmouth, but told Ronan “see you later, buddy.”            Orphan Girl ran ahead of them. Ronan helped Gansey up the stairs, and then across the floor, picking their way between Henrietta buildings, and finally laying him down on the bed. Gansey fell gladly, barely making a sound. Ronan looked up to see Orphan Girl fretting, and threw a hand towards the back of the room. “You know where your room is, go on and get in it.” She skipped off. Ronan stared back at Gansey then, frowning, worrying at his bottom lip. He was about to pull away when Gansey reached out and grabbed his shoulder. When he looked back Gansey’s eyes had opened slightly, and he whispered, “gratias ago.”            Ronan took the hand away and put it back down on the bed. “Whatever, just don’t expect room service Dick.”            Gansey winced, but it made something unwind inside Ronan. Gansey curled into himself under the blankets, and rested his head against the pillow. “Can I not get a little sympathy here, I died today.”            Ronan, confident now that Gansey would rest, shook his head and started walking towards his room, surprised at the feeling of sleep overcoming him. “Didn’t we all.”            When the door was closed, Ronan stood against it, head hitting the wall. He wasn’t sure where to start, but he could feel his phone resting heavily against his thigh. With a sigh, he took it out and dialled Declan’s number.            Declan answered immediately. “You’re alive?” came out in a rush.            Ronan nodded, and then said, “Yes. Matthew?”            “Matthew’s fine,” Declan said, and both boys took a minute to let the relief sink in. “What about mom?”            He felt his heart stop, and he closed his eyes. After a second Declan swore violently, and hung up.            Ronan’s body slid to the floor, and he listened to his heart beat against his chest. A few minutes passed, or maybe it was an hour, before Declan called back. “What the hell happened today?” he asked, quieter than before.            Ronan stayed where he was, hunched against the door and hugging his knees to his chest. “What the hell,” he repeated, considering. It was going to be a long phone call. Ronan woke up somewhere around midday. The few hours of sleep he’d had didn’t seem like it should be enough, but he felt restless and reenergised all at once, and hurled the covers off him like an infection, jumping to his feet and assessing his body. He touched fingers to his neck, wondering if there was much bruising – he hadn’t looked in a mirror – and closed his eyes, feeling where the rest of his bruises were. It’s nothing, he determined, and started looking around for clothes. He was desperate for a shower, it felt like he hadn’t showered or eaten or anything for days, but he wanted to check Gansey first.            When he opened his bedroom door, he was surprised to find Gansey’s bed empty. There was no noise coming from the shower, but when he stepped out into the room he finally saw Gansey sat crosslegged near the far wall, glasses on his face and a journal resting against his knee. Ronan breathed out heavily, and went back into his room to fetch Chainsaw.            She’d been happily sleeping in her cage this whole time, but now pecked restlessly at its bars. He let her out and she flew ahead of him back into the main room. Ronan crossed it slowly and looked down at where Gansey sat, bathed in mid-day light from the tallest window. He was scribbling on an empty page, which Ronan figured meant a new journal. He sat down, close to Gansey but not touching. Chainsaw landed on his shoulder and pecked at his hair, so he patted her feathers gently.            Gansey stopped writing, but the two remained quiet for a few seconds more. Gansey looked up and out the window, as if seeing the sun for the first time, and Ronan took the opportunity to assess him. He’d never looked younger, with his hair mussed from sleep and all the light taken out of him; but one pen in hand tapping against a knee made him still quintessentially Gansey.            “I’m documenting,” Gansey finally explained.            “Ah,” replied Ronan. He got it, or at least understood why Gansey would have to do this, but the pain of it all seemed like a waste to Ronan.            “It’s just sensible,” Gansey replied as if in answer to something. He looked at Ronan then, trying out one of his smiles – this one said I know and I’m sure and it’s ok. “It’s academic. I’m writing down the location of the cave’s entrance, and a description of the building, and some facts about the tunnel, and about, the tomb,” he finished. Gansey looked away then.            Ronan fought something internally before saying, “It’s ok man. To be disappointed. Fuck, I’m disappointed.”            Gansey took his glasses off and rubbed his face. “It just seems so trivial in comparison to everything else,” he said. “And I’m not trying to overstate its importance. We found Glendower – yay – and he was dead – woop-de-woo – and, I’m trying –” he stopped, clearly failing at whatever it was.            Ronan wasn’t sure he was a very good comfort in times of a crisis. “If you think you’re gonna cry I can go get Parrish,” he said, and Gansey laughed. Ronan stood up, patting Gansey awkwardly on the shoulder, and walked away. He understood that this was Gansey’s closure – the part of the hunt that had been academic had to be tied up – there would be weeks ahead of scribbling notes and crossing off factual inaccuracies in Gansey’s journals, before a phone call to Malory and perhaps others to announce his conclusions. Whatever other closure Gansey would need, Ronan figured would probably take longer than that. And if he was going to be any use at all, he thought drily, he’d need to shower. And probably get some more sleep. And – no, anything else would have to wait. Shower. Sleep. One thing at a time. At 6pm Blue knocked on the door of Monmouth gently. She knew it wasn’t necessary – the boys rarely remembered to lock the door, but she wasn’t sure who’d be in, or who’d be asleep. After a few moments Ronan ripped the door open. He gave her an appraising stare, then stepped aside.            “Nice to see you too,” she said, and walked past him with a smile.            He grinned, and knocked his shoulder into hers. “Hey we’re all still alive can you believe it,” he said, voice low and sarcastic. She looked past him to where Gansey was asleep on the bed.            Blue shook her head. “I really can’t.” Ronan walked off to his bedroom. Once in it he didn’t close the door, which Blue thought was pretty friendly of him.            She walked over to the bed in the centre of the room, shrugging off her coat somewhere in Skylark Avenue and crouched uncertainly by the side of Gansey’s bed. If he was asleep, she didn’t want to wake him. But she’d been hoping he’d be awake.            Blue touched her hands to the side of the mattress, and rested her chin against them, tucking her legs under herself. You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive, she thought, and then allowed a minute to think of herself. I killed you, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t, and you’re still here.            She considered the fact that she hadn’t really let herself fall for Gansey before; falling for someone hadn’t ever been a thing she’d allowed before Gansey. Even with Adam it had still felt like a game she was able to play: one step forward, one step back. But with Gansey all of her steps had wanted to take her hurtling forward, and she hadn’t let them. Even knowing what she wanted, she hadn’t let herself want it more than for a few moments. Even when they’d told Adam and Ronan, it had still felt like a dangerous game they shouldn’t have been playing.            Now, she wondered if she might feel different, and panicked. Blue looked at Gansey’s sleeping face, assessing her feelings. One hand was tucked under his cheek, a pillow where apparently the actual pillow hadn’t done the job, as it law askew against the headrest. His soft hair aching to be touched.            She considered how unfair it was that Glendower was dead. Hadn’t Gansey been right? He’d been right about everything – Glendower was here, he was here, he’d been buried beneath the lay line just as Gansey had said, and the path to Glendower had been revealed just as Gansey had asked. She felt so angry at the injustice that after all this rightness he’d been dead anyway, that she wanted to do something. A week ago she’d have used this feeling to fiercely hunt for Glendower. But now she didn’t know what to do with it. It was all so unfair.            And if she was feeling this terrible, she couldn’t even begin to imagine –            No. Blue didn’t feel any different. She looked down at Gansey, this lovely magnificent king of theirs, and felt fiercely protective, and loyal, and charged. It made her want to smile, and it made her want to break stuff, all at the same time. She wondered if this was how Ronan Lynch felt all the time.            She wasn’t sure how much time passed, her sitting above Gansey, him breathing softly through his nose, before Ronan eventually came out of his bedroom, and walked over to her. He put a hand on her shoulder and she sighed, standing.            “I’m heading out,” Ronan said, walking towards the door.            Blue followed, “Me too, Fox Way have requested the pleasure of my company before the sun goes down if you please, it was the only way I was allowed to come in the first place.” She glanced back to Gansey. “Will he be ok by himself?”            Ronan shrugged on his jacket. “Orphan Girl’s sleeping in Noah’s room.”            “I’m not entirely sure that counts.”            “He’s just sleeping, what could happen now?”            It felt like a dangerous thing to say, but Blue let it pass. Eventually they had to accept that the worst was over. Gansey was alive. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept that long, or during the middle of the day at all, and woke up to what felt like a different kind of darkness to the early-day one he’d fallen asleep to. He stared at his ceiling for a few moments, blinking, wondering what point there was to getting up when he had no work or school to go to, no Glendower to hunt. But then it wasn’t as if he was going to sleep any more so, hesitantly, he got up.            He was still moving slowly, his hands throbbing in their own ways; he’d thought that having his hands and eyes taken over by demonic possession was the worst – and it was, but he thought not being able to use his hands in any way that was useful was pretty bad too. He wouldn’t have been able to do a thing at work that day, and wondered how he was even going to shower effectively.            There was a knock at the door, and he stilled. He hadn’t been moving before, but he stilled in every sense. Ronan? he assumed. He closed his eyes, steeling himself, I’m not ready, I’m not ready.            He went to the door and opened it. Ronan Lynch was standing on the other side.            They didn’t speak. Ronan looked at Adam once in the face, and then away, peering around the apartment as if he hadn’t seen it before. “You gonna invite me in?”            Adam didn’t remove his fingers from the door. “I was just about to have a shower.”            Ronan raised an eyebrow. “So? I’ll wait.” Adam stepped back and Ronan stepped in, pausing here and there to touch things with his hands – lift a car magazine, feel the comforter, knock on the wood panelling, switch the beside lamp off, and on again. Adam fidgeted, and closed the door.            “I’m gonna have a shower,” he said.            “I heard,” Ronan replied, drawling and not looking at him.            “Okay,” Adam said, and stepped into the bathroom, shutting the door. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand over his face. Steam, that’s what he needed. Steam, and five minutes to think.            Later, when he rubbed a towel over his hair and put his clothes back on, he wasn’t sure why he’d thought five minutes would be long enough to solve his problems. When he opened the bathroom door Ronan was sat on his bed, knees up and boots on the comforter, reading the car magazine. He didn’t look up as he said, “Hey man while you were gone I may have fallen in love with this 1968 Porsche 908. Look at those wheels.”            Adam didn’t reply. He hovered.            They didn’t speak for a while, but Adam noticed Ronan had stopped turning the pages of the magazine. Eventually he put it down. “So,” Ronan said, “Parrish. What’s up?”            “What do you mean?” asked Adam, feeling so grade-school even as he said the words.            “I mean,” Ronan said, sliding to the edge of the bed and putting his feet on the floor. “I don’t want to come across as clingy or anything but it doesn’t really seem like you want me here.”            Adam considered. “I…” he trailed off.            “All right,” said Ronan, hands clapping his knees and standing up, “whatever, I’ll come back on a day when you’ve untwisted your panties.”            He walked towards the door, but Adam grabbed his upper arm. “I’m…not ready.”            That had been the wrong thing to say. Ronan glared at him and shook off his hand. “Well geez Parrish why don’t you give me a call when this is all more convenient.” He slammed the door shut after himself. In the kitchen/bathroom at Monmouth Manufacturing, Gansey looked at his face in the mirror, touching his jaw lightly, and wondered what he was looking at.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Monday. Mondays usually felt like a day of beginnings. Exhausting, thrilling, frustrating, endless beginnings. A new occasion to battle responsibilities: school, homework, Glendower, Ronan, Glendower.            It had been two days since they’d lain defeated in a river of blood.            But today was Monday, and Gansey was waiting for his troubadours outside his front door. He looked down at himself, contemplative. He was wearing his favourite sweatshirt – teal, v-necked – and slacks. He tilted his head slightly, wondering for a minute why anyone liked anything, why anyone made the choices they made. Was this what he was expected to wear? Normally disliking anything he was supposed to do, it made Gansey question why he felt so right in it. They were comfy, he reasoned. Well-made. Easy. No fuss.            He looked up and his foot twitched, kicking the dirt.            Gansey was self-aware enough to know that this charade – this waiting at Monmouth for Adam, Ronan, and Blue to arrive – risked looking pitiful. They’d found Glendower, and he hadn’t adequately prepared for the aftermath. Sure, when he’d always pictured it happening it had been finding Glendower alive, and with a favour, and with everything changing afterwards, though he’d never really thought far ahead enough to consider what exactly was supposed to change. How he felt? That after finding the king that saved him, he’d feel differently about his death? Could he still feel differently, Glendower being dead?            He frowned. His foot twitched, kicking the dirt. Gansey put a stilling hand on his thigh.            He was inadequately prepared.            Gansey could hear the sound of a car coming round the corner, and sighed. He had to prepare. He was bored of long, troubled looks and the insistence on rest and time, Gansey, and wasn’t sure how to convince everyone he was fine, he was alive, look here I am miracle child alive for the second time what a waste            The BMW skidded into the car park and Gansey smiled widely as he looked inside the car. His first thought was Adam’s not sitting in the front, as Blue got out the passenger seat, and then Ronan looks pissed.            Ronan slammed the driver’s door shut and walked casually round the side of the car, hopping up on the engine. “Well, your majesty,” he said, drawing his hands wide, “your courtiers have arrived.”            Adam got out the back more slowly, shutting the door and leaning on top of the car. He smiled at Gansey, but it looked worn. “You’re awake,” he noted, “and outside.”            “I’m not sure we were allowing outside quite yet,” Blue said, leaning up on tiptoes and kissing Gansey on the cheek. Warmth spread through his skin, and Gansey closed his eyes, smiling, a hand reaching to Blue’s arm.            “Jane,” he whispered heavily, looking at her. “I promise I feel ok. I promise to feel ok every day for the rest of my long life. All right?”            She looked unconvinced, but then one of the things Gansey liked the most about Blue was how long it took to convince her of anything. “Mmm, ok. But you must tell me if that changes.”            “Noted.” Looking up he grinned broadly and spread his arms wide, matching Ronan. “It’s Monday!” he announced.            There was silence. “And?” asked Ronan, taking a long time over the word.            “And we’re alive Lynch! Don’t you feel it?”            Ronan didn’t dignify this with a response, but Adam replied, “Feel what?”            “The absolute certainty that we must mark this day. That we must make this occasion count. Sure, Glendower’s dead –” Gansey waved off the thought with a hand, “and many other things are terrible, but we’ve all been signed off school and responsibilites and we my friends must mark this day.”            Adam smiled incredulously. Blue smirked and leaned back on one leg. “Ok sure. How would you like to mark it?”            “I thought we might go for a picnic.”            This was met with a deadened silence. Followed by Adam’s, “Sure.”            “Why not,” said Blue.            “Great,” Ronan drawled.            Gansey wrapped an arm around Blue’s shoulder. “Wonderful.”            Ronan rolled his eyes and leapt off the engine, hurling himself back into the driver’s seat. Adam followed more slowly.            “You know they’re only humouring you because you died, right?” Blue said, looking up at Gansey.            “Of course,” Gansey replied. “I wouldn’t expect any more, or any less of them.” He leaned down, and kissed the top of her head. Adam thought it was typically Gansey that he couldn’t have just called and said hey, it’s a nice day, let’s go for a picnic, and wondered if after all this he’d forgotten how to act like a person. Then again, it’s not like Adam felt he was one to talk.            He looked over at Ronan a little further away, leaning against a tree, shredding bread with no real apparent purpose. It just all seemed so complicated. He frowned. Chainsaw was resting on Ronan’s shoulder, as restless as he was, cawing and moving her head up and down. Adam battled with a desire to know what they were thinking about, against the warning in his chest. No.            On the other side of him Gansey was lying on his back, pointing at the sky and telling Blue, and Adam, he supposed, had he been listening, about the different types of clouds they were privy to that day. “That is a fantastic example of a stratocumulus, Jane! Parrish, do you see it? There, there!” Adam murmured agreement, and then faded back into his thoughts, only coming back around when Blue said his name.            “What?” he asked, stupidly.            “I said what do you think that cloud there looks like?” Adam blinked at her, and then tilted his body so that his eyes were looking where she pointed. Like a raven, he thought, and then blinked again, shaking his head. When he looked back, it was just a messy fragment of whisps.            “I don’t know,” he replied honestly.            Blue punched his arm lightly, sighing in exasperation. “Well that’s not how you play the game, Adam. I think it looks like a butterfly.”            “Then so do I, Jane,” Gansey said from his position on the ground, and Blue went to tackle him – Adam could think of a few reasons she’d object to this response – but Gansey instead caught her, and put his head to her hair. The two lay still like that and Adam breathed slowly out, something catching in his stomach. An hour later, most of the food gone, Adam was lying beside Blue in the grass while Gansey and Ronan were off to the side, throwing breadcrumbs at Chainsaw, seeing how fast she could catch crumbs out of the air.            The sky hung blue overhead. A breeze drifted over Adam and he allowed his eyes to shutter close.            “How are you?” Blue asked suddenly.            Adam felt betrayed. “We were just talking about our favourite dips,” he objected. “You can’t spring a question like that without any notice.”            “Hmm,” Blue responded and sounded superior.            “What?”            “Only people who are not okay respond to the question ‘how are you’ by being defensive,” she said, sounding sure of herself.            “Well, are you ok?” Adam asked in response, sure that if he kept his eyes closed he’d manage to hold onto his thoughts a little while longer.            “Of course not,” she replied, and he opened his eyes to look at her in surprise. She looked back at him. “My best friends all came very close to dying two days ago, my boyfriend actually died, Noah…” she stopped. She had uttered the unspeakable.            Adam breezed past it. “Boyfriend?” he asked. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say.            Blue shrugged. “I guess. Why not?”            “No reason,” Adam replied, twirling a piece of grass between his fingers.            They were silent for a few minutes. “Adam, can I ask you something?”            “Sure.” Adam chewed on the piece of grass.            “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”            He choked. It wasn’t what he’d expected. As he contemplated how to answer this, Ronan and Gansey started heading back towards the clearing.            “Well that’s a little awkward,” he murmured quietly.            She thwacked him with her hat. “I mean besides me you idiot. Anyway we didn’t really count.”            “Ouch.”            “Don’t pretend you’re insulted.”            Adam considered this and realised she was right, he really wasn’t insulted. He liked Blue, and he still thought she was very pretty, and there’d been a time he’d really wanted her, only now he wasn’t entirely sure it had been for any of the right reasons. “One,” he replied.            “One what?” this was Gansey, sitting down next to them and picking sadly through the empty picnic basket.            Adam felt heat rush through his cheeks, embarassed.            “One girlfriend,” Blue supplied, and Adam closed his eyes. Good god, he thought.            “Parrish! You have a girlfriend? You didn’t tell me,” Gansey said, and Adam could hear the humour in his voice. “Pray tell when did you find time between our mass near-death experience two days ago, and now, to find yourself a woman?”            Ronan snorted. Adam chose to ignore this.            “I don’t mean now,” he choked out, sitting up. “Blue asked if I’ve ever had a girlfriend, and I have. When I was 13. At my old school.”            “Yes and we were having a very nice conversation until you two ruined it,” Blue said haughtily.            “Well I don’t want to ruin girls’ time,” said Ronan. It was said slightly too fast, thought Adam, for the sarcasm to be convincing.            “Isn’t that all you do, Ronan?” asked Blue, and Gansey gave her a fistbump, practically swooning.            “Very original,” Ronan said, teeth bared, “how did you come up with that one?”            All the humour had gone. “Ronan,” said Gansey, a reprimand.            “What’s with you?” Adam asked, glaring at him.            Ronan met his eyes. “Nothing, Parrish,” he said low, quiet. “I’m sunshine and rainbows, me.”            The four of them were quiet after that.            Gansey settled his head into Blue’s lap, and after a while Blue started humming a tune. Adam thought he was about to drift off when Gansey said, “No one ever asks me about my past relationships.”            At that Ronan laughed.            Gansey threw a twig at him.            “He’s got a point,” Adam said. “I just assumed the culmination of your past relationships amounted to it’s complicated with Glendower and it’s serious with Henrietta.”            Gansey made a pah noise, though he didn’t look entirely displeased. Neither did Blue, who ran her fingers through his hair, looking like she’d happily never move again. “Well everyone already knows all about my disasterous romantic history.”            “Again, thanks,” said Adam as Ronan fell into silent laughter.            “I didn’t mean you,” said Blue, heat rushing to her cheeks, “just, you know, my lack of romantic history. When you know you’re going to kill your true love with a kiss it sort of puts you off the whole thing.”            “Like knowing you’re going to get food poisoning from an otherwise delicious steak,” mused Gansey.            Blue blinked. “Sure.”            There was a space in the conversation then, where it became apparent to Adam that they’d now discussed the romantic history of three people, but not the fourth. He wondered whether it was obvious to anyone else, and considered that maybe other people weren’t as wildly hyper-aware of conversation as he was. He envied that, and closed his eyes, trying to choose between sleep and moving the conversation forward. The problem was that it was difficult to know what to talk about. It was clear that no one was ready to talk about what had happened yet, or about Cabeswater, or Noah – at this thought Adam frowned, and he felt his chest tighten. Not yet, he thought. Let me have this day, this week, this month…            “Kavinsky,” said Ronan. It was so out of the blue that for a minute no one responded.            “Huh?” asked Blue.            “I assumed you were all wondering,” said Ronan, fingers playing at the leather straps around his wrist. “He wanted it, but it wasn’t like that for me.”            Trust Ronan to use so few words that the receiver had to do more of the work than he did.            “Oh,” said Blue, sounding as though she hadn’t been wondering that at all.            “Yeah, well,” said Gansey, sounding as though he had been wondering, “he was bad news.”            Adam looked at Blue, and could tell from her complicated expression that she wanted to ask more but was wary of scaring Ronan off. After careful consideration, she said, “But has there ever been… anyone else? Any other… guys?” It was a bold move. Ronan never talked about this and none of them had ever asked. Adam had once had a conversation with Gansey about it. Gansey had shrugged and said, Yeh I think so. Maybe. Why? Like it didn’t matter. Adam had agreed, it’s not that it mattered, to any of them. But at the time he’d still been struggling to fit Ronan Lynch together, like a puzzle that hadn’t come with all the pieces.            Adam and Gansey looked at each other, communicating silently. Gansey didn’t tell her? When Adam moved his gaze to look at Ronan, it was to find Ronan staring at him, his eyes asking Adam a question.            When Adam didn’t say anything, Ronan nodded once and cleared his throat. “Nope,” he said to Blue. He stood up then and walked away.            Gansey sat up. “Adam? What happened?”            Blue frowned. “Did I miss something?”            Adam stared into his lap. He twisted his fingers together and bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.            “You promised me,” said Gansey, his voice firm and with no room for ambiguity.            “Well shit Gansey if I promised you I guess that makes this all simple doesn’t it,” Adam bit back.            “What happened,” Gansey said again. It wasn’t a question, it was a command.            “What happened,” Adam gritted out, “is that I nearly killed him. I felt my fingers pushing into his neck, can still feel my fingers pushing into his throat, my fists swinging towards his face, and I thought it wouldn’t be too much to ask for a couple of days to process that.” Adam stopped, and stood up, turning around and running a hand through his hair, taking a few deep breaths and closing his eyes. Stop, it’s ok, it wasn’t you, you’re not a danger, the demon’s gone, Cabeswater is gone, it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you, it wasn’t you. He ran through the list.            He felt a hand on his shoulder and shrugged it off. “I’m ok,” he said flatly. “I’m gonna go find Lynch,” and he stalked off in the same direction as Ronan.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Oh,” said Blue.            Gansey was silent.            “Oh,” she said again.            Gansey rubbed his face. “Yes.”            He looked over at Blue to see her considering this news.            “So… they kissed,” she echoed.            “That’s what Adam said.”            “Is that… I dunno. Do you think it’s real?” she asked.            It was a remarkably astute question, given that it was what Gansey had been wondering.            “I think it is for Ronan,” he replied.            “How do you know?”            He wasn’t sure how to answer that. Sometimes Ronan could be entirely unpredictable: the amount of times his behaviour drove Gansey to the edge of frustration… but he felt he always understood. “I just know.”            “And Adam?”            Gansey shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”            Blue lay back down on the grass, and frowned at the sky. Gansey leant back on elbows and watched her. He wanted to tell her how cute she looked when she was solving a problem, or when the blue sky was mirrored in her eyes, or when she cared about their friends as much as he did; but he found himself overthinking it and instead leaned towards her. “Blue,” he said softly, and her eyes flicked to his, warming at the look on his face.            “Gansey,” she replied, smirking.            “I just…” he cleared his throat. “We haven’t really talked…”            “Yeah,” she agreed. “Maybe we should.”            Gansey’s heart skipped a beat. There was knowing and there was knowing. And he wondered…            “I want this,” she said, touching the side of his face, stroking his cheek. “Do you?”            A grin spread across Gansey’s face. “Yes. God yes.” He leaned in to her face and rubbed her nose with his. Blue started giggling, but Gansey didn’t care if he was being teased. He closed his eyes and they lay there silently for a long time. Adam found Ronan where the trees parted to show the side of the mountain. Ronan was sat on a rock, picking up small stones and throwing them aimlessly. Chainsaw was nowhere to be seen, but Adam wondered if the allure of the open sky had taken her.Following Ronan had been surprisingly easy. For starters there were some footprints, a couple of noises in the distance, and the occasional mark on the side of trees that looked like someone had struck them, hard, with a small log that Adam eventually found abandoned; and then there were the birds. Perhaps Adam had altogether become too used to the idea of forests being magical, but he’d stopped at one point and cocked his head, listening to the bird song. It sounded like Ronan, and because he was alone he didn’t have to explain how crazy that was, and so he followed the song of the birds to where the spattering of trees parted.            Ronan obviously heard him coming and turned his head slightly. “The fuck you want, Parrish.”            It wasn’t even a question. Adam didn’t know what he wanted. “To make sure you weren’t dead in a ditch,” he replied. Adam walked forward and sat on the ground next to the rock, arms round his knees and looking at his hands.            After a moment Ronan spoke. “Forget it Parrish,” he said, disinterestedly. “I get it, ok. You changed your mind. It’s been a weird fucking few days. I’m not gonna hold you to… Let’s just… fuck, just forget it ok.” He stood up and walked back the way they’d come. Ronan dropped Blue and Adam home first and then drove Gansey to find his car. Gansey was twitching with nervous energy, thinking of his car sat abandoned at the side of the road for the past three days, and wondered if he’d left it too late, if the police would have collected it already.            He looked over at Ronan, who was driving with remarkable care. Gansey checked; they were going below the speed limit. Gansey raised his eyebrows and looked back at the road.            “You sure this is the right way?” said Ronan.            “Pretty sure,” said Gansey.            “Pretty sure,” mocked Ronan, “isn’t sure.”            “What do you care,” said Gansey, “what do you have to do today?”            Ronan shifted. “I could have… things. Tasks. Important work.”            Gansey raised an eyebrow. “Tasks?”            “Shut up,” said Ronan.            They fell into an easy silence, marred slightly by the electronica blasting out of the BMW’S stereo.            “So, Adam,” said Gansey cautiously. He felt Ronan tense beside him. “Unless you’d rather…”            “I’d rather,” said Ronan quickly, “find your goddamn girlfriend and get the fuck back home.”            Gansey said nothing. Ronan was easily pissed off, and not easily manipulated; but Gansey couldn’t help himself. He thought it might be his duty to push. “Have you talked to him since –”            “Yes, Gansey, all right?” Ronan snapped, sounding pained. “Of course I have.”            “All right, well, what did he –”            “He doesn’t want – I don’t think it’s –” Ronan looked like given a choice between continuing this conversation and crashing the car, he’d choose the latter. “Look it’s just not happening. Whatever.”            Gansey breathed out. “He said that? He said that he doesn’t want –”            “Yes,” said Ronan loudly, like the wind had been knocked out of him. His knuckles tensed on the steering wheel, and the car jerked to the side as Ronan corrected the BMW’s position on the road.            Gansey rubbed his face. Oh man. Maybe he’d been too harsh with Adam. It wasn’t ideal, but if Adam didn’t feel the same as Ronan then wasn’t it better to be done with now, rather than later?            They made the rest of the way to the Camaro in silence, and as soon as Gansey had turned its engine on, Ronan raced off in the BMW, driving away from Henrietta. Henry opened his door after only one knock. “Gansey man!” he said cheerfully, holding up a hand and grinning.            Gansey took it and walked through the door. “Henry,” he said, smiling, “I hope you don’t mind me just dropping in.”            “Of course not!” In fact Henry looked positively gleeful, and something like guilt twisted inside Gansey. He stepped over the threshold and Henry lead him to the kitchen, talking about Aglionby, offering him drinks, water or coffee or god what is this, how good he looked for someone who died two days ago, how Mr Lynn had made a glaring error in math and Henry had pointed it out and somehow now I have a detention for it – me! the very picture of sophistication!, and here a glass was being pressed into his hand, his arm guided until his body found a dining chair. Gansey blinked, and raised the glass to his mouth. If he’d been expecting vodka or gin or god what is this he would have been disappointed by the cool, grounding water that now filled his throat, his blood, his skin, his body. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.            “Are you okay?” Gansey looked up to see Henry frowning. He wasn’t sure he’d even spoken yet.            “Sorry,” Gansey managed. “Yes. I am fine and I didn’t mean to alarm you. I’ve been out all day and I’m just a little tired.”            Henry’s face was sceptical. “Great, that’s exciting, I’m glad that you’re fine. I was just thinking – if you weren’t fine – it might look a little like this.” He gestured vaguely at Gansey. His eyes darted to the window. “You got the Camaro back?”            Gansey nodded. “I’m surprised it was still there to be honest,” he said quietly, anxiety clenching at him.            “I’m not,” said Henry, and shrugged at Gansey’s expression. “You’re a king aren’t you?” He smirked.            “That’s just –”, Gansey choked a little, “a joke, an expression. A manifestation of the Glendower fantasy we were mass hallucinating.” At this bitterness had accidentally crept into his voice, and he looked down at the glass in his hand, noticing water rings on the dining table and looking to see if there were any coasters.            Henry looked pensive. “It’s ok to have wanted it,” he said. “To have wanted it all, to have wanted more.”            Gansey frowned. “I know,” he said, eventually.            “Because you’re acting as though we will all think you childish if you throw a tantrum over this,” Henry explained. “But if it were me, I wouldn’t even be standing right now.”            “The others wanted it too,” Gansey started to explain.            “No,” said Henry. “They wanted it because you wanted it. I’m not sure you understand the effect you have on people –”            “Oh jesus,” exhaled Gansey, “that’s either impossible to hear because it’s not true, or because I don’t think the fact that I was brought up around politicians should excuse arrogance.”            “It’s arrogant to have wanted Glendower to be real, to have wanted the favour?”            “It’s arrogant to assume I deserved any of it,” Gansey snapped, hot from the embarrassment, surprised he was saying any of this, wishing he hadn’t come, not being sure why he had. “To assume I deserved any of it is to say Noah deserved to die.” He spoke quickly, not thinking over his thoughts like he normally would, speaking more than he had in days. “That it’s not worth having Cabeswater in this world, that a rich boy with the world as his playground was right to mess with that kind of power, to inflict that pain on Ronan, on Adam, on Blue.” He wasn’t really sure that what he was saying was entirely true, but he felt so bitter, so spiteful, he let the words spill out anyway. “People have died Henry, because of the ley line, because of my hunt for Glendower, Adam was nearly destroyed by the whole – And god what have we changed? Nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing.” Gansey’s head was in his hands, resting gently against the cool pine table.            Henry’s hand came to rest lightly on Gansey’s shoulder, and he took a shuddering breath. “Look, I don’t know a lot of the specifics,” Henry said quietly, “and at some point I’m going to need you or Blue to give me a magical history of henrietta 101, but I don’t think any of that is your fault. Fault is a very weighty word to throw around on a Monday, but I suppose I mean that I don’t think any of them, Blue or Parrish or Lynch would say any of it was your fault. Shit happens. The universe is weird.” Gansey looked up to see Henry shrug. “And I wouldn’t say nothing has changed. Don’t you feel different?”            Gansey sat back, and took a steadying breath. “That’s the other thing,” he said more slowly, trying to calm his thoughts, his insides. “I do feel different. What if – what if Cabeswater made me… I don’t know. Parrish and Lynch and Blue asked Cabeswater to bring me back, or – or to make another me, I’m not sure… but – what if I didn’t come back the same? What if I’m not Gansey?” Ronan drove. He sped along highways and round dirt track corners, even off-roading on a particularly windy and barren plain. He drove constantly, and barely changed speed. He shifted gear only a few times, when some distant corner of his brain took over and decided it didn’t actually want to flip the car. He counted trees, and picnic areas, identified metals and plastics in the barriers, the road signs, memorised phone numbers for construction companies, delivery companies, shook his head and shifted up a gear, invented rude slogans out of licence plates, postcodes, names of roads, invented devices, machines, dream things that would keep Matthew safe, rated radio stations and shifted back to the stereo, closed his eyes and opened them again, watched the sun rise over the mountains.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Blue wasn’t sure what a person did with their spare time when they weren’t at school, studying, working, hunting for welsh kings, so she found herself knocking on the door at Monmouth as the sun was going down.            That day she had read, sat against the beech tree in the garden – except she hadn’t really been able to concentrate, feeling the bark against her back, the roots beneath her thighs, the stars in the sky, masked by cloud and daylight; had alphabetised jam jars of tea in the kitchen until Jimi shooed her away with some consternation; had bothered Calla with questions about aerial aerobics – how do you stay up like that? – until Calla had practically barked at her to just go see the pretty one will you.            As Blue opened the door, it occurred to her it was probably long past time that she take Gansey to dinner at her house, re-introduce him to her family and sternly remind them that they knew him pretty well by now, they’d been through a lot together, they knew his actual name and that it was well time for the name pretty one to die in a ditch.            “Hello?” she called, looking around the room. No one appeared to be home. Gansey’s bed was messy and unmade in the centre – but then it was always messy and unmade, so that didn’t really offer any evidence. Blue considered knocking on Ronan’s bedroom door, then thought better of it. She went to Noah’s old room and opened the door slowly. The stark blankness of the room, the small neat single bed, the sheer uninhabitedness of it. Blue closed the door and wiped away a tear. This was not what Noah had been to her anyway. Noah was sitting close in the Camaro, petting each others’ hair, laughing together at Nino’s, her first kiss on Gansey’s bed… She smiled, and then felt a strange pride for having done so. What a strange creature grief was. She sighed, feeling both 18 and a thousand all at once. How much time seemed to have passed in just a few short days.            Blue looked over at Ronan’s door again, and then before she could reconsider found herself knocking on it. “Ronan?” she said hesitantly.            For a few seconds there was no reply. And then the door opened, suddenly and with force. Ronan Lynch looked pissed. He blinked at her for a few seconds, and she could see him swallowing down anger – anger that didn’t belong here, between the two of them – and for a second she felt a surge of affection. “What the hell do you want?” he snapped. The affection waned slightly.            “Nice to see you too,” Blue said sharply. “In case you haven’t forgotten we’re good friends you and I, and I have come to see how you’re doing.”            Ronan raised an eyebrow and looked round the empty warehouse. “In other words,” he replied, “boyfriend is nowhere to be found and Parrish is probably busy working himself to death, and you have nothing better to do.”            Blue considered this for a moment, then shrugged, a smile twitching at her mouth. Ronan ducked his head, hiding a smile Blue saw full well, and turned into his bedroom, leaving the door open.            She hovered there a moment. She liked Ronan, but they’d never hung out. She wasn’t sure what Ronan Lynch would consider a casual hang out besides running rings in his cars, with his ravens, with his dream child. Blue looked around the room. “So, tidying?” she asked, noticing the overpiling clothes basket and boxes and boxes of what were probably dreamt objects falling off the wardrobe and bursting out of drawers.            “Ha,” Ronan said, drawling out the word. He sat on his bed and picked up his mp3 player, scrolling through it silently.            “Do you want to play pool?” Blue asked. She was terrible and Ronan would beat her, but she didn’t know where Gansey or Adam were and figured Ronan might talk to her with enough coaxing. Talking to Ronan was like trying to tame a wild animal – it had to be done with extreme caution and patience. You had to look out for fangs, or claws, and you couldn’t expect anything close to easy or direct communication; but if you were really lucky you might end up getting one of those jobs in zoos hugging pandas.            Ronan looked up. “Sure,” he replied shrugging, taking off his earphones.            “Great,” Blue said with enthusiasm. She watched as he set up the table, breaking and potting a ball. Blue applied chalk to the end of her cue. She had no clue what it did but she liked the rhythm of the thing, the soft noise it made, blowing on the end. “So, where’s Gansey?” she asked, trying to sound light.            Ronan smirked. “Didn’t last long,” he said, potting another ball. “The king’s at Cheng’s – he went there last night and stayed over, I already checked.”            “Good. Thanks,” she said. “I mean, for keeping an eye on him.”            Ronan shrugged as he walked round the pool table, assessing angles. “Guy died, I’m not letting him off the leash any time soon.”            Blue smiled. “Glad we’re on the same page.” Ronan took a shot and missed. Blue walked up to the table and considered her options. They were all bad. She potted the white.            “And Adam?” she asked as Ronan knelt at the base of the table, retrieving the white.            Ronan didn’t let a beat go by. He answered, too quickly, “At work. I think. How am I supposed to know.”            Blue looked down at her feet. She wanted so much for things between her and Ronan to be ok, to not anger him, but at the same time it felt so stupid to know the things she knew and not be able to say them. “I… uh… Gansey told me. About… Adam.” Ronan looked like he hadn’t heard, lining up his shot and taking aim. But he missed the ball he’d been going for. He stood up and took the chalk off the table, not looking at Blue as he leant against the table.            “I hope that’s ok,” Blue added. “I just felt weird knowing and, not being sure if you knew that I knew.”            Ronan nodded. “Ok,” he said. “It’s – whatever, it’s not like it’s a big deal.” He put the cue down at that point and stalked off to the kitchen. Blue blinked, not sure if he was coming back or if she was supposed to follow him.            Seconds later Ronan was returning, pressing a beer into Blue’s hand. He’d already opened his and chugged a few swallows by the time Blue had registered what was happening. Am I being inducted into the Lynch inner circle? she wondered curiously, and then was comparing Ronan to a wild animal in her head again, and maybe that’s why Blue opened the beer and took a sip. She grimaced, as she always did with the first taste, but by the time she was a few sips down it wasn’t so bad. By a few sips down she could feel the cool, bitter liquid bubbling down her throat, rich and sweet and humming. She sighed and looked at the can in her hand, smiling.            Ronan laughed, appraising her. “Quite right maggot,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “In vino veritas.” He took another drink.            Blue smirked, ignoring the Latin. “Does this pathetic macho display of fraternity mean I get to ask you about Adam now?”            Ronan put his drink down and wiped his mouth, lining up his cue again. “Nope,” he replied.            For a while they played in mostly companionable silence, Ronan smack talking when Blue played poorly, but also overreacting joyously when she did actually pot the right ball, high fiving her and whooping.            They finished the game, and Ronan started packing everything up.            “Ok,” started Blue, feeling the rush of alcohol in her cheeks. “I’m not going to ask you any questions about Adam.” Having decided in advance what she was going to say, Blue realised that if she were going to be brave enough to say this she was going to have to talk quickly. “I just want to say something and as my friend I’d like you to do me the courtesy of letting me finish before you interrupt.” Ronan didn’t reply, or even acknowledge that she’d spoken, just kept fretting with balls and cues. Blue decided to interpret this as agreement. “At the picnic yesterday, when you were talking about – about Kavinsky, and then walked off… Adam said some things, about… what happened, that day. About losing control of his hands and eyes and, attacking you. He said that he’d nearly killed you and – it just seemed like maybe he needed some time to process. You know what he’s like. He seemed upset but, not like he didn’t care about you. I just… thought you should know.” She finished, regretting it all, hating herself for meddling, feeling like a loathsome gossip, and suddenly hating Ronan for peer pressuring her into drinking alcohol, herself for fawning over this guy who couldn’t even hold a proper conversation, them all for how difficult their lives had become.            She finished her beer, more in anger at herself than at any true desire or want, when she realised Ronan was looking at her. She placed her beer down on the table, and looked back at him. When he still didn’t say anything she hopped up on the table and sat, swinging her legs and looking round the room. She thought about Gansey, wondered why he’d gone to Henry’s and not invited her – and then felt annoyed at how clingy a response that was. Of course he could do whatever he wanted. They all could now, now that they didn’t have this collective aim to work towards. She felt lost, suddenly, and frowned.            “Well,” Ronan said into the air. Blue snapped her head back to look at him, having almost forgotten he was there. “Great,” he said, not sounding like he thought anything was great at all, putting the cue carefully down on the table. “That’s just great.” He went to the kitchen and emerged with two more beers. Handing Blue one he popped his own open and leaned back against the pool table. He took a swig then said, “That’s great and that’s also fucking stupid.”            Blue opened her own beer more slowly and considered it in her hand. “It’s stupid for him to be afraid of hurting you?”            “Yes.”            “Come on Ronan, it’s been a lot. We’ve all been through a lot –” She stopped short at the look on Ronan’s face. His mum’s dead, she reminded herself. A wave of empathy coursed through her and though she knew he’d hate it, she simply put a hand on Ronan’s arm. He didn’t bat it away immediately, so she gave him a little squeeze and then returned it to her side. Ronan looked away from Blue to gaze out the window, so she looked down, giving him the moment in private. She couldn’t imagine, and it made her want to run back to her house and hug every woman in it. But this was her family too.            After a while, Ronan said simply, “Thanks.”            Blue pursed her lips. “You’re welcome."            Ronan frowned and looked down at the table, knocking it gently with his knuckles. “Asshole,” he murmured, and Blue wasn’t sure who he was talking to.            “Completely,” she agreed. Ronan smirked at her. Shame and hatred peeled away from her skin. She sipped her beer. That night, Adam finished his shift at Boyd’s quietly, and clocked out at 11pm on the dot. He unbuttoned his coveralls and let them hang at his waist, stretching and cracking his bones, realigning himself with his own body. He grabbed his bag and ran a hand across his face, opening the door.            A BMW was sat on the curb just outside the garage. He thought he could see the outline of Ronan sat inside it.            He wanted to simultaneously scream and hurl himself forwards toward the car. Adam, as he often did, compromised with himself. He turned around and with his hand tensed carefully against the wall imagined for a minute the anger he’d let himself express in that moment if he were any other person, if he’d had any other life. He’d punch the wall. He’d scream in frustration, he’d let the crawling sensation on his skin explode outwards, let every anxiety drip into the silent night.            After a minute Adam heard a car door open. He turned back round, and his hand dropped to his side. Ronan. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Adam got into the car. Blue didn’t go home straight away. She wasn’t oblivious; whilst she didn’t have a curfew she knew that if she wasn’t home by midnight they would worry. But she found herself being dropped off at Henry’s, waving at Ronan as he careened into the night.            She rang the doorbell. Henry answered. “Jane!” he said, a broad smile on his face.            Blue rolled her eyes as she hugged him. “I assume Gansey’s still here then,” she said.            Henry’s smile faltered slightly as he stepped aside to let her in.            “What’s wrong? Is he alright?”            “Well…yes,” Henry said, walking her through the hallway and up the stairs. “Yes in the sense that he’s alive and obviously that’s a miracle in itself.”            “Henry?”            “He doesn’t seem to want to go home, which doesn’t seem very Gansey-ish.” Henry didn’t look at her as he stilled outside a room. “I think he’s having a mid-life crisis,” he clarified in a louder voice.            “I heard that,” Gansey said, opening the door to reveal what was clearly a spare room, hair askew and glasses on as if he’d been in bed, though clearly not sleeping. His eyes landed on Blue, and the smile that she knew was only for her quirked his mouth up. “Jane,” he said softly. “How good to see you. I, uh, hope I didn’t worry you. Lynch told you I was here?”            “He sure did,” she said gently, smiling.            Henry didn’t hover. “Well, I’m off to bed. Or at least that seems like a reasonable excuse to leave you guys to talk,” he added, grinning and loping off.            Blue stepped into the room and Gansey shut the door behind her. She looked at his face, trying to work out from physical evidence what was wrong. “How are…things,” she asked cautiously, and Gansey laughed shortly, just once, running a hand through his hair and taking his glasses off.            “Oh, Jane,” he said, “you know me, it’s – I think –” and then he was sitting on the bed, and his head was in his hands, and his whole body was shaking. Blue knelt on the ground and held him in her arms, and said nothing. Some time later, Blue found a phone and called home, and told Maura she was staying at Henry’s that night. They drove back to Adam’s apartment. It was only a 10 minute cycle from the garage, so it took the BMW hardly any time at all to get there. They didn’t say a word. Ronan followed Adam up the steps, and Adam had the sensation that this could have been any time really, that they’d done this so many times, walking up these steps together, that everything felt dizzyingly circular. They went inside, and Adam closed the door behind him. He didn’t even turn on the light.            And then it was Ronan pressing him against the door, lips crashing against lips, Ronan kissing him with intent, with unsaid thoughts, with missed days, with time crashing against them. And Adam for once didn’t think; he ran his hands up Ronan’s back and kissed him back and led him backwards to the bed, crashing over it, time crashing over them both, everything dark except for the moon crashing against Adam’s pillows, lighting Ronan’s eyelashes, and he was kissing them, and trailing his mouth down Ronan’s face, and neck, and Ronan was arching against him, and their heartbeats crashed against their ribcages, and Adam let out a slow breath against Ronan’s hip, and for once he didn’t fucking think.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adam studied his knuckles in the bathroom. He turned the mirror light on, and trailed a finger across his hand, wincing slightly. The fracture hadn’t been bad enough that he had to wear a cast, and it was only two of the knuckles, but the skin above them had resplit slightly, and he could feel the tension aching across his hand. Looking at his tired reflection in the mirror, scrunching up his face as he examined the scratch below his right eye, he turned his other hand in a slow circle, exercising his strained wrist. That felt better today. He was so tired of feeling sore. He imagined actually taking the week off that Maura and Calla had pressured him into, even calling his school to explain, as family friends, about the violent and unfortunate events of the weekend (making it sound like extended family drama, rather than anything else). But today was Wednesday, and he’d already missed enough. He tried tightening his right hand into a shape that could hold a pen. It had been slow work during his shift yesterday, trying to hold tools in his left hand, wincing when his wrist strained against the effort. But at the very least he could listen to his classes, maybe jot a few things down, collect homework.            He finished getting dressed and rubbed his face wearily before turning off the mirror light and stepping back into the bedroom. Ronan was dressed too, and his phone was pressed to his ear. He looked up at Adam, raising an eyebrow at the Aglionby uniform. “Ok,” he said into the phone, and looked back at the floor.            Adam walked around the room, stuffing books into his school bag, keeping an eye on the clock. He realised Ronan had finished talking on the phone, because he was sat on the edge of the mattress, watching Adam.            “Why are you wearing that?” Ronan asked, pointing at Adam.            “It’s Wednesday,” Adam remarked, shrugging. “I’ve had two days off – days which I didn’t really need –”            “You’re going to school?” Ronan said, standing up and rolling his eyes. “Why, man, the psychics got us off, we could do literally anything and you wanna go to Aglionby?”            Adam didn’t bother replying – they’d had this argument enough times and he felt tired by it. Ronan knew why he was going. He picked up his bag with the wrong hand and winced, throwing it over his shoulder.            “How are your hands?” Ronan asked, walking forward and sounding softer. Adam lifted his hands and flexed them slowly. Ronan lifted his own fingers slightly and then stopped, making a fist at his side.            “Good enough,” Adam said. “They only hurt when I use them.”            “So don’t use them,” said Ronan, “come on are you sure you couldn’t –”            “I’m going, Ronan,” said Adam, and Ronan just stopped. He sighed.            “Fine,” he said. “Well a day conjugating Latin verbs sounds better than third-wheeling the heteros.”            Adam blinked, watching Ronan as he grabbed his phone, his keys. “Wait, you’re coming?” Ronan shrugged, and made his way to the door, pausing in front of it to look at Adam quizzically. Ronan’s going to school. For me, Adam thought.            He half-turned to the kitchenette, grabbing two apples and throwing one to Ronan. Ronan caught it and raised an eyebrow. “Since fucking when do we eat fruit,” Ronan asked slowly, examining the foreign object suspiciously between his fingers.            “Since you decided to be a good boy all of a sudden,” Adam replied, smirking. He grabbed Ronan’s arm and pulled him out of the apartment and down the steps.            In the car Ronan said, “I gotta go to Monmouth and feed Chainsaw, get my uniform…”            “And your books,” Adam suggested.            Ronan scoffed. “And then drop into 300 Fox Way to see if Orphan Girl is still alive. Do we have time or are you gonna have a panic attack?”            Adam rolled his eyes. “We have an hour, it’s fine.” Ronan started the car, a booming beat filled the vehicle, and they raced away from the curb. Adam felt a buzz of happiness in his stomach. “It was nice of Blue’s family to offer to take Orphan Girl for the week.” Ronan shrugged. Adam wanted to ask what are you going to do with her now that Aurora’s dead or now that Cabeswater’s gone or now that you could live at the Barns, but instead he asked, “Who was on the phone?”            “Blue called to say Gansey’s still alive.”            “Well, that was nice of her.” Adam checked the time. It was 7am. He raised his eyebrows at Ronan. “And how would she know?”            Ronan smirked. “Same reason I know you’re still kicking.”            Adam felt heat and a smile tug at his face and looked out the window. “So what, is this a thing now, you two keeping tabs on our heart rates?”            “Yep,” Ronan said. “Pretty much.”            “You’re the one who was nearly mauled to death by a psycho, nearly unmade by a demon,” Adam said, and only in hearing the echoes of it afterwards realised that it sounded less light than he’d intended.            Ronan was quiet for a minute. Adam scrabbled desperately for something to say. “Yeah, about that Parrish,” Ronan started. “Uh… wait, do you have work tonight?”            Adam shook his head. “No, not tonight.” He kept his gaze firmly out the window, watching shop-fronts and houses and pavements blur by.            “Ok,” and they fell into comfortable silence. Aglionby was, in many ways, uncomplicated. Not that Adam had expected it to be any different; he used to take solace in the fact that Aglionby never changed, whatever else was going on, with Gansey, or Ronan, or his dad – it was reliable. It was v-necked sweaters and top shelf! and lawn petitions and the headmaster chumming his way through hallways and amo amas amat and lockers between classes. It was timeless, immutable, enduring. That’s why Adam always thought student politics was so pointless here. They weren’t anywhere fixed when they were on campus; they were floating, unstuck, unchangeable. Timeless. And that was fine. And he hadn’t expected it to be different, but it felt wrong without Gansey here. Gansey was the one who revelled in it.            Adam imagined Gansey and Blue, on their day off, and wondered what they were doing.            Ronan lolled his head against the lockers and sighed for the fourth time that day.            Adam smiled, but he felt restless. He turned his left hand in a small circle, feeling his wrist tighten. “School getting in the way of casual Wednesdays?” he remarked, exchanging books in his locker.            “Hey if you want to see me naked that bad you could just ask,” Ronan said, rubbing his face. “How much longer do we have to stick this out?”            “Uh,” Adam glanced at his watch. “Until the end of the school day? Two hours?”            Ronan looked like a wild horse, glancing around him, chewing at the leather bands at his wrist, shrugging on his jacket and shrugging it off again, all restless energy . Or…no. Not like a wild horse. Like an addict.            Adam frowned. “You ok Lynch?”            “Yeah, why?”            Adam shrugged. “Ok.” But he felt the same restlessness. He hadn’t been able to concentrate in his classes that morning. He’d doodled in margins, squeezed his eyes shut, open again, listed Roman emperors in his head, drafted a pro/con list for colleges for the fourth or was it the tenth time (Ronan had tried to snatch Adam’s notebook but he’d stuffed it into his bag); it didn’t make a difference.            Nothing seemed real.            He knew, logically, pragmatically, why it all mattered. No, remembered, he thought. He remembered why it mattered. Work, pay for Aglionby, study; work, pay for college applications, study; work, go to college, study. He knew the list, it had been his dogma now for nearly three years.            But he shut his locker and leaned against it, joining Ronan in watching the other students as they jostled through the centuries-old hallway.            No one here knew that Gansey had died last weekend. Had been fucking resurrected – Ronan’s voice had been dipping in and out of his head for days, or was it weeks – resurrected through sheer luck that Cabeswater worked the way Cheng had guessed it would. Cheng, who hadn’t been with them from the start, who didn’t know Cabeswater like they did; it had been luck, and it ate away at Adam, and he knew that Gansey should be dead.            No one here knew that psychics were real, that the hadn’t-happened-yets or already-happeneds were interchangeable, predictable, knowable, relivable; that Ronan Lynch’s father had taught him to take objects from his dreams; that Adam had been caught up in, no, had thrown himself head-first into them, had nearly killed Ronan as a result.            Adam closed his eyes, and squeezed his fists. This wasn’t reality.            He couldn’t remember the list.            “Want to get out of here?” Adam asked.            He felt Ronan turn towards him, and opened his eyes. Ronan raised his eyebrows and said, “Sure,” though it came out sarcastic, like he was expecting a trap. Adam grabbed his hand. Adam practically pulled Ronan up the stairs at Monmouth, the BMW cooling down outside after a hard run, and shut the door behind them. “Finally,” Adam said, and kissed him.            He felt Ronan hesitate, and ran his hands along his shoulders and down his arms pulling off Ronan’s jacket. He could feel Ronan shaking lightly under his touch, and didn’t know if it was from laughter, or nerves, or... Something inside Adam clenched, and he kissed Ronan harder, pulling lightly upwards at his sweater.            And then he felt Ronan relax beneath him, pulling off his sweater, and Adam’s too, and then leaning into the kiss and running his hands through Adam’s hair, pulling them both backwards, towards Ronan’s room.            Once inside Adam pushed Ronan back against the wall; he kissed him with urgency he didn’t understand, only knowing he wanted to be here, now. Adam ran his hands down the side of Ronan’s shirt, and up the back, feeling his muscles and spine, felt Ronan doing the same to him, tasted Ronan’s lips, his mouth, kissed along his cheek down to his neck, and back again. He felt Ronan tense, and then –            “Wait.” It was the softest of sounds, and Adam might not have heard it at all if he hadn’t felt it against his lips, hadn’t been half waiting for it. He pulled away slowly, his hands still on Ronan’s back, catching his breath and not opening his eyes. Ronan pressed his forehead against Adam’s, his own hands squeezing lightly at Adam’s hips, and cleared his breath. “Wait,” he said again, louder.            Adam stepped back and walked over to the far corner of the room, staring out of the window, one hand on his neck. He felt hot, he felt restless. Fury raged through his skin.            “I just said wait, Adam,” said Ronan from behind him, “not fuck off. Don’t look so freaked.”            “What is it then?” asked Adam, turning round to face him. “I thought this was what you wanted.”            At that Ronan’s entire body language shifted; he tensed, and clenched his fists at his sides. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said, low with teeth clenched, and Adam could hear how angry he was, “except yeah I do – I thought this was what we both wanted?”            Adam rolled his eyes, impatient. “Of course it is,” he snapped.            “Well how am I supposed to know that when you haven’t said a fucking word to me since – since –”            “Since you kissed me and didn’t say a thing about it either?” demanded Adam.            “Ok fine,” said Ronan, crossing his arms. “This isn’t what I want.” Adam’s heart thudded in his chest. “Not like this. Blue told me you were freaked out, about the demon possessing you –” Adam whirled back around, and put one hand on the window sill, anchoring himself. “Parrish, that’s – you don’t need to be – I don’t care –”            “Why not?” Adam thundered, and all of his anger, all of his built up restlessness, all of the energy he’d been containing inside himself for days now blew out of him all at once, and he threw his arms away from his body, fingers clenched. “Why don’t you care? Do you really have that little self-worth that you’d risk being around me?” he demanded, gesturing at his chest. “Haven’t you got it into that thick skull of yours? Don’t you get it? You’re beautiful,” he said, hardly containing any sliver of control he had left, “and I’m nothing but destruction! You dream cars, and orphan girls, and forests, and – god – hand lotion, and I –”            Ronan’s hand was at Adam’s chest now, folding his hand in his, holding it still against his heart. “Wait,” he said firmly, and Adam did, and he could feel his heart bursting against his chest, against Ronan’s hand holding his own, and took in large, shaky breaths. He closed his eyes. “Wait,” Ronan said again, and Adam looked at him. The gentleness in Ronan’s eyes, the understanding, was unbearable. “What did you just say?”            Adam rolled his eyes and pushed Ronan’s hand away from him. Frustrated, he said, “Ok, sure, yes, yes, yes, ok, but don’t you get it –”            “Jesus fuck Parrish,” Ronan exhaled, bringing a hand up and rubbing his face. “Don’t give me this juvenile shit –”            “I’m not just saying this like I’m insecure,” Adam said, trying and failing to steady his voice. “I tried to kill you.”                      Ronan took a step towards Adam, who was pacing wildly in front of the window. “Well, are you gonna try again?” he asked.            This infuriated Adam. That’s not the point why doesn’t he get it why doesn’t he see it – “Well of course not, but –”            “Are. you. gonna. try. again?” Ronan repeated, dangerously close to Adam now.            Exasperated, Adam threw up his hands. “That's not the point…”            “Then what is the point?”            Adam exploded. “I'm him! After all that I'm still him! You know where I’m from, what’s in my blood, what’s inside of me. Why do you think the demon chose me –”            “Because of Cabeswater,” Ronan tried to interrupt, but Adam wasn’t listening.            “And now we know what I’m capable of.” Adam had already known, had already been haunted by it in nightmares, in waking dreams, in the feel of his own heart, now, raging against his practiced instincts for calm, measured, steady…            “But it wasn’t you –”            “And now we know you wouldn’t fight back.” And this, this was it, finally, what had been eating away at Adam, not just the memory he couldn’t erase of watching, helpless, as his own hands gripped tightly round Ronan’s neck, his own fists swinging towards Ronan’s face – but the knowledge that Ronan hadn’t fought back. Hadn’t defended himself. Why? Was it because he didn’t know? Adam was poison, and Ronan must know that.            Ronan’s hands flew to Adam’s arms and caught them, holding Adam in place, halting the pacing. He spoke slowly, but furiously. “Because. it. wasn’t. you, shithead – you really think I wouldn’t have fought back if Adam actual fucking Parrish was trying to kill me you dumb fuck?” Ronan moved his face towards Adam’s, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I don’t need you that much.”            And for a moment there was nothing but quiet, but this.            Nothing made a sound but Adam’s own heartbeat, air dragging its way out from Adam’s lungs, Ronan’s gaze piercing his eyes.            And then,            “Ronan? Adam? Are you here?” It was Blue, calling from the main room. Adam and Ronan were still breathing heavily, chests falling and rising rapidly, and Adam couldn’t pull himself back into reality. The impossibility of Blue, being here now, calling their names, when nothing mattered except getting Ronan to understand, seemed absurd. Ronan put one hand on Adam’s chest, and the other on his shoulder, taking a deep breath and staring into Adam’s eyes. Adam couldn’t look away, and breathed deeply, trying to calm his heart. His breath came out ragged and he closed his eyes.            Then he felt Ronan move away, heard the door open, heard him calling. “We’re here, what? What?”            Adam opened his eyes as Blue flew into the room. “Gansey’s gone,” she said.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Is this ok? Am I crushing you?”

“No offence Jane but the frame of your body makes such an idea laughable. Oof –”

“I’m not above hitting someone who’s been resurrected recently.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m… not sure what there is to say. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to worry you.”

“Don’t be silly. I kind of like worrying about you, I just wish there wasn’t anything to worry about.”
 Blue paced up and down in the main room. Adam and Ronan were still arguing about something in Ronan’s bedroom; but she didn’t have any spare thought to give to that. Eventually Ronan came out, Adam hovering in the doorway.            “He’s what?” Ronan asked, uncharacteristically still as he stood in front of her, waiting.            “He just – he’s gone,” said Blue, taking in deep breaths and trying to work up the courage to face this problem in front of them.            “What do you mean gone?” Adam said, walking forwards now.            Blue looked irritated. “Gone, disappeared, no longer somewhere I can find him.”            “Thanks for the clarification,” Ronan snapped.            “Have you checked the library?” Adam suggested. “Sometimes he goes there when he’s restless.”            “I haven’t checked anywhere yet, I came to ask you guys if you’d seen him.”            “Way to panic, Sargent,” said Ronan. But he had to work hard to keep his voice low and even. They all knew – Gansey didn’t just disappear. “I thought he was with you at Cheng’s?”            “He was,” Blue said, now starting to look around Monmouth, eyes darting wildly between objects. Gansey. Gone. “He’s been there the last two nights, and I – was with him last night too,” Blue rushed through her words, “but I went home this morning, and when I went back after lunch he was gone.”            “I don’t understand,” said Adam, frowning. “Why couldn’t he just be… you know, out? Busy, doing chores. We don’t know where he is all the time.”            “Henry wasn’t home, maybe he saw Gansey at Aglionby…”            Ronan shook his head, “We were there today, no Gansey.”            Blue was surprised, and took in Ronan and Adam’s untucked shirts and loose ties for the first time, but she didn’t have any energy for it, so continued pacing. “Then… I don’t know.”            “Blue, come on,” said Adam, taking her arm to stop her pacing. “What aren’t you telling us?”            She looked him in the eye. “The Pig was gone, his clothes were gone.” She looked around the room now and stomped over to his desk, slapping a hand down on its bare surface. “You ever seen this tidy?” Ronan walked over to it. Blue wanted him to say yes or this isn’t unusual or sometimes when he visits his parents he – Ronan opened the top drawer.            “No epipen,” he said. He might have been shouting were it not for the sudden lack of oxygen in the room.            “Have you tried his parents?” Adam asked, ever the logical one. “Helen?”            “I don’t have their numbers,” Blue said. They both looked at Ronan. Ronan took his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Adam, who rolled his eyes and walked off a little way to make the calls.            “I know we agreed to keep up death watch for a few weeks,” Ronan said as Blue opened drawers, searching frantically for – she didn’t know what. “But don’t you think you’re overreacting? I mean christ he’s probably out grocery shopping.”            “With his clothes,” Blue said, finally finding a drawer in a dresser that was empty, “his spare epipen, his notes, his journal.” Ronan was silent.            Adam walked back over. “They haven’t heard from him,” he said, “none of them. I tried to keep it light, didn’t tell them we were worried.”            Ronan ran a hand over his head once, twice. “Malory,” he suggested.            “Do we have his number?” Blue asked.            “There are some in the desk….” Ronan muttered, opening and closing drawers until he found a scrap of paper with phone numbers on it. Blue snatched it from his hand and read down the page Mom&Dad, Helen, Lynch, Declan, 300 Fox Way… and finally found it: Malory (UK).            Blue waved her hand anxiously at Adam, who turned over Ronan’s phone. She dialled, and worked out how to put it on speaker phone. They waited, listening. When Ronan couldn’t stand it anymore he huffed off to his room, fetching Chainsaw and bringing her out to the listening party. By the time he’d returned Malory’s voice was booming out of his tiny hated phone.            “Jane!” he was saying, sounding delighted, his British accent cracking through the phone speakers. Chainsaw cawed disagreeably. “How good to hear from you. How’s that ley line of yours?”            Blue flicked a glance at Ronan. So Gansey hadn’t been in touch with him. “Great,” she said quickly, adding in extra energy to her voice before adding, “listen, have you heard from Gansey today?”            There was a pause where Blue wanted to reach out and touch something, do anything with her hands. “Why no,” Malory replied. “I haven’t spoken to Gansey in a few days. Poor chap how’s he holding up?”            “Holding up?” Blue repeated, frowning.            “Yes poor thing since Glendower,” he said conspiratorially, drawing out each syllable.            “Oh, so he has spoken to you?”            “Yes, yes, called me Sunday. Dead, after all that! Pity. He’s never been good with disappointment has Gansey, never good with endings.”            “How do you mean?”            “Well, I told you the story of how he left England. I woke up one morning and he was just gone.” Gone. Ronan and Adam looked at each other. “We’d had a tiff, and had covered a lot of ground, and I suppose the chap must have just felt done.”            Blue felt cold. Time stilled as she considered the before and after effects of this phone call. There was the before, when they could all still imagine Gansey, sleepy and wearing his glasses, walking through the door of Monmouth, grocery bag in hand, him all apologies and them all mockery and relief. And there was after. “Right,” she said, although Malory was still talking, “thank you, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go now, bye.” She hung up the phone, looking at it in her hand.            “You don’t think…” started Adam.            “No,” said Ronan quickly. “That’s not what’s happened. This is different. He wouldn’t…” He faltered. “Let’s go look for him.” Ignoring looks from them both he stalked off to his room to grab his things. 
“I’m so sorry…”

“Shh… it’s ok, it’s ok, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I thought I could will it to be real.”

“We all did, but it wasn’t your fault. What happened happened centuries ago, we just didn’t know.”

“I should have known. What a fool I am.”
 They were in the BMW. Ronan would have suggested splitting up, it was more efficient, they could cover more ground that way, they’d find him; but he saw the look on Adam’s face, the way Blue stayed close. They were without gravity.            Even now, Adam sat in the front, looking out the window, the blank expression Ronan saw on Blue’s face in the rearview mirror, made his jaw clench. “Where first?” he grunted. The truth felt heavy; it didn’t matter where they went first.            “Uh, the library, I guess?” suggested Adam.            It didn’t matter where they went first, because if Gansey wanted to be found, they would find him, and if he didn’t, he would be unfindable. The severity of his allergy meant that if he’d been stung he’d be dead before he hit the ground; findable or unfindable, he’d be dead, and that would be it. Ronan couldn’t help but feel this was all pointless.            “That sounds fine,” said Blue in a small voice. There was no need to shout over the noise of the BMW, not like there was in the Pig, and Ronan shifted the gearstick violently, letting the engine groan, the car jerk, and heard a satisfying shock of breath from Blue. He smirked.            Gansey wasn’t in the library. He wasn’t at Nino’s, or the gelato place; he wasn’t at the grocery store, or dollar city, or the scrapyard; he wasn’t at 300 Fox Way, or Litchfield; the headmaster had not heard from him; Adam checked with old friends from the rowing team while Ronan hunted down familiar faces from the drag strip.            It took hours to comb through the Barns; after the house, combing every inch of land and barn and hedge as though this were a crime scene, Ronan eventually picked up a rake and hurled it through the air, as far as he could throw, shouting once, furiously, into the empty night. Adam and Blue stood behind him, saying nothing.            Gansey did not want to be found. 
“Jane, can I ask – oh, sorry, I didn’t realise you were asleep.”

“Mm, not asleep. Just quiet and unconscious. What’s up?”

“It’s ok if you need to sleep, I didn’t mean to –”

“Shush you. What did you want to ask?”

“This is going to sound so puerile…”
“Let’s pretend you didn’t just use a word I don’t know and skate straight onto the puerile shall we.”
“Why me?”
“Well… shucks, I don’t know. Why me?”
“Because… you’re the only thing that stills me. You feel… right. I didn’t think I’d meet anyone I could feel so myself around until I moved to Henrietta and met Lynch, Parrish. They challenge me in so many ways – some of which I could do without – but I feel so alive around them. So real. And you… I didn’t know I could feel this alive around…”

“Around a girl? That’s original.”

“Around someone so real. You make me think that anything’s possible.”

“Mm. I like that.”

“And… what about me?”
“Oh god I don’t know Gansey, you have to make everything so… Ok, ok, fine. I mean, the way you dress is ridiculous, you know? As if we’re constantly summering on yachts. And sometimes the way you talk – I mean puerile, where do you get this stuff from. And I really think your perspective could do with a bit of modernising, a little bit of grounding.”
“…I’m waiting to see if I should leave.”

“Shush, I’m not done. You’re somehow both incredibly all of those things, and yet not those things at all. You let me see underneath all of that… that posturing? To the, the things you like most about yourself. It makes me feel safe, and trusted, and wanted. And to be wanted by someone as incredible as you, as kind and brave as you is… pretty awesome.”

“Oh.”

“Is that ok?”

“Yes, Blue. It’s more than ok.”
 They were sat at Nino’s, the leather of the booth feeling claustrophobic against Ronan’s skin. He still thought this whole thing was stupid, but for lack of Gansey to take control of the situation Adam had suggested that they needed to regroup, to formulate a plan. It was late, and Nino’s was an hour away from closing, and Gansey could be lying dead in a forest.            Ronan flicked a packet of ketchup at Adam, nervous energy twitching through him.            “We should call the police,” Adam said, picking the packet up gingerly from his lap and placing it back on the table.            Ronan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”            “Why is that stupid?”            “Because it’s Gansey, what do you think’s happened here?”            “Ronan…” started Blue, sitting across from him next to Adam, her eyebrows knotted together.            “No seriously. Do you think he’s been kidnapped? If he’s left us then he wanted to, his fucking choice. And if he’s lying dead somewhere then he’s dead, not much police can –”            “Lynch.” Adam’s voice was like a slap across the face, and Ronan stilled. Blue’s face was ashen. All the breath had left Ronan's chest suddenly, and he rubbed a hand across his forehead, over his head. He left his hand there, and stared at the table.            “If we haven’t heard something by the end of tomorrow,” Adam said, keeping his voice steady, “I’m calling the police.”            “I think that sounds sensible,” said Blue quietly. “This isn’t Cabeswater, this isn’t just us. He could be in trouble…”            Ronan stood up and slammed out of the restaurant. 
“I just don’t know what else there is.”

“What do you mean? Shh, shh, it’s ok…”

“I just don’t know what else to be, how else to be. I don’t know who I am without it.”

“You’re Gansey, you’re our Gansey, come on…”

“That Gansey died when he was ten. I believed the only reason I’d been brought back was to find Glendower, to wake him, and he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, and it was all for nothing,

it was all for nothing,

it was all for nothing”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

That night, Ronan dreamed.            It wasn’t one of those dreams where the dreamer knew they were dreaming; if it had been Ronan might have observed that this was the first time he’d dreamt since before the unmaking. Since his mother dying. He’d spent the intervening days starving himself of sleep; driving, or painting Gansey’s Henrietta, or watching Adam sleep mind whirring furiously; staying awake as long as possible so that when he was finally snatched to sleep it would only be for an alarm or sunlight or finally to wake him what felt like mere seconds later. Not enough to dream, or to remember dreaming.            That night though, without a word, Blue had climbed into Gansey’s bed at Monmouth, looking pathetic and on the edge of tears. A hinge of guilt had ridden through Ronan, which only made him scowl at her. Was it his fault she couldn’t face the truth? Gansey could be dead and there was no point pretending otherwise. But the bed was big, and Adam had climbed in next to her, one arm around her shoulders while she cried. Ronan had rolled his eyes, taken his boots off, and sat at the opposite end of the bed, tucking the comforter over his crossed knees. He leaned back against the footrest, studiously ignoring an amused look from Adam, and began the process of cataloguing objects at the Barns in his head.            He had moved on from the kitchen to the living room when he realised Blue and Adam were both sleeping. For a few seconds he allowed himself to stop cataloguing and watched Adam instead. The two were curled together, heads facing the same way on the pillow, Adam’s arm lightly touching Blue’s shoulder, Blue’s face frowning even in sleep. It made something tighten in Ronan’s chest. He didn’t think it was jealousy.            This was the problem; he hadn’t seen it coming. One minute he was watching Blue and Adam, listening to the soft sound of their chests rising and falling, air escaping nose and throat, moonlight dappling against Adam’s forehead, the feel of the comforter grasped tight in his fist, shoulders angled tense against the footrest, head falling backwards.            It went like this. He was in Cabeswater. No, that wasn’t right. He was in Dollar City, but there were trees, roots smashing down through ceramic tiles, branches pressing up against florescent strip lights and signs which said things like home and stationery, dead autumn leaves resting quietly amongst snow globes. Ronan reached out a hand to pick up one of the snow globes when something caught his eye on the ground; fragments of smashed glass covered in glitter. He frowned.            “Lynch,” came a familiar voice from behind him. He turned round.            “Gansey,” he said, something catching in his throat. “About fucking time I’ve been waiting.”            “Sorry,” said the other boy, shrugging. Gansey picked up a snow globe and threw it up in the air, catching it again easily.            “Careful,” Ronan hissed, “I think I smashed one already.”            “Not yet,” Gansey replied easily, shaking the object in his hand and showing it to Ronan. The flakes that flew up in the scene were black, and as they fell down they seemed to rise in number, coating not just the hills and farmhouses below but sticking to the glass wall, filling up the landscape.            “Stop playing around man,” snapped Ronan, “we need you. We gotta go.”            Gansey nodded, frowning. “Yes. I know, you’re right. I need to be honest with you.” In a sudden, violent motion Gansey threw the snow globe on the ground and it smashed, black flakes sticking to glitter on the ceramic floor. Ronan jumped back, as some of the flakes had landed on his shoe. When he looked up, Gansey was crying. No, that wasn’t right. There were black tear-stains around Gansey’s eyes, but he didn’t look sad.            “I need to be honest with you,” he said again. Blackness was oozing out of his eyes now, and Ronan stepped back in horror, a silent scream engulfing his lungs. “You’re one of mine,” Gansey said, smiling gently. “I took you from my dreams.”            And then Gansey fell to the floor, twitching violently, black sludge weeping out of his eyes, his ears, trickling from the corner of his mouth, a hand curling towards a tree root.            And Ronan was falling to the floor too, and grasped his chest, feeling himself retching. He was suffocating. No, he was going to be sick. No, he was having a heart attack. No, he was going blind. No, everything was bright and airless and crawling. No, he was dreaming, no his skin was being torn apart, no was he awake, no Gansey was dying, no there was no air Adam’s eyes flew wide open, his body twitching once from the shock of being awake. For a second he sat still, breathing. He saw the back of Blue’s neck, her head curled down, her body moving up and down as she breathed gently. He sighed, rubbing his cheek lightly on the pillow, and wondered what had woken him.            Something moved against Adam’s foot, and he pushed himself up on his elbow.            Ronan was laying curled at the foot of the bed, and his whole body was jerking.            Adam pushed the comforter aside and crawled out of it, kneeling over Ronan. “Lynch?” he said gently, pushing at Ronan’s shoulder until his face came into view.            “Ronan,” Adam breathed, and then louder, “no, no, not again,” shaking Ronan by the shoulders, fingers desperately wanting to touch his face, to wipe away the black liquid that was forming around his ears, his noise, his eyes, his lips.            “What? What’s happening,” said a throaty Blue, as Adam felt her body move behind him.            “He’s – he’s –” Adam started, “it’s like it was before, he’s – it’s like he’s being unmade but, I don’t understand, how –”            He leapt out of bed then crouching on the floor instead to get a better grip on Ronan’s body, “Ronan,” dragging the comforter off him, and looking at his face. “Ronan!” he shouted again, shaking his shoulders furiously. Ronan was frowning, black-stained teeth grit tightly, tension etched into his cheekbones.            “Wake him up!” Blue said, standing next to Adam. Fingers twitching, she picked up Ronan’s phone from the floor.            “I’m trying,” Adam said. He stood up and ran to the kitchen, filling a bowl with water. He could hear Blue, “Declan, it’s Ronan – we’re not sure, is Matthew ok? Can you check – he is?” Adam hurried back and without ceremony upended the bowl, water not so much splashing as striking Ronan’s face.            Ronan gasped then, and Adam could feel Blue still next to him. Ronan’s hands lifted to rub his eyes, to feel his heartbeat, to rest on his chest as he took in a ragged breath. Adam didn’t think he’d ever breathe again.            “Blue?” came the faint voice from the phone. Blue lifted it to her ear. “We think he’s waking up,” she said into it. “I’ll call you back.” She hung up and let the phone fall to the bed.            Adam couldn’t look away from Ronan; did not want to look at him. Slowly, the other boy’s eyes opened, and he blinked through water and black tears. His eyes finally focussed on Adam, but he was still breathing heavily, and did not speak.            Then Blue was there with the bowl refilled, a towel in one hand and the other guiding Ronan’s elbow to help him sit up. She dunked the towel in the bowl, wringing it once, then held it out to Ronan, pressing it gently into his hand. He blinked at the towel, then accepted it, moving it over his face and away again to stare at the black mess.            Adam wondered for a second if the black liquid was dangerous.            But it couldn’t be. This wasn’t Ronan being unmade. The demon was gone. Cabeswater was gone. This was just a dream. This was just Ronan bringing stuff back from his dreams. This was just Ronan bringing stuff back from dreaming. This was just            “What happened?” asked Blue.            Ronan wiped the towel across his left ear and cleared his throat. “It was just a dream,” he said, slightly hoarse. “Stop looking so freaked.”            “Are you sure?”            Ronan didn’t reply, and Adam couldn’t bear it. “If you’re sure, Lynch, then I can just touch –”            Ronan jerked away from Adam’s outstretched hand, spilling water everywhere, hurtling himself to the other side of the bed. For a second no one said anything, then Ronan breathed out, “Shit,” gently, and closed his eyes. It was a few hours later, and everyone had retreated to different ends of Monmouth. Blue felt empty. She wondered vaguely when she’d last eaten, and if it would help. The sun was starting to rise, and with a sigh she got out of Gansey’s bed and rubbed her face. She wondered if anyone was even sleeping, but no one had known what to say, and Gansey wasn’t there to bring out the best in any of them, so instead they had retreated.            Ronan, after showering, after helping Blue change the bed sheets, after carefully making sure every inch of that fucking black stuff was out of harm’s way, had stormed off to his room, slamming the door. Blue shrugged apologetically at Adam, though she wasn’t sure why. Adam had rubbed the back of his neck, a far away look in his eyes, and had said he’d stay in Noah’s old room, before leaving Blue alone.            She had sobbed quietly and briefly into Gansey’s pillow, before lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.            Now, she thought, I should go home.            Instead, she made her way over to a chest of drawers, opening them more slowly than she had done yesterday, finding a beige cable-knit sweater. She took it out, feeling the pleats under her fingers. Blue knew that the part of her that believed in Gansey’s history, in the parts of his character that she hadn’t wanted to look at too hard, that believed in the Malory version of Gansey’s disappearance, would eventually be furious at him; would be unforgiving; would just be done. But she was tired, and empty, and lost, and terrified that he was in trouble. So she pulled the sweater over her head. On her, it was comically long, almost a dress, but it smelled like him.            Blue sat on the floor, reaching for one of Gansey’s books and flipping through it vaguely unaware. While she flicked, wakefulness and fury began to rise through her. What if he’s left us, she allowed herself to think. What if he got what he was looking for, and left. What if –            Adam sat down next to her, and she started. “You made me jump,” she said, but not crossly.            “Sorry.”            Blue considered for a moment, then said softly, “What do we do now? I think you were right that we should call the police, if we run out of options. So… what are our other options.”            Adam took a deep breath. He looked exhausted, eyes darting and then closing, opening again. “I suppose we talk to Maura, and Calla,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “See if they’ll do a reading. I could try scrying… I haven’t tried since Cabeswater got destroyed. But if Ronan…” he trailed off. “If it does work it might give us an idea about what’s going on with Ronan. If it doesn’t, then we know Cabeswater’s definitely gone.”            “And the demon,” Blue added. Though she wasn’t sure scrying would be proof of the latter’s demise. “Adam, do you think –”            But Adam’s attention had been drawn away to the other side of the room. Blue turned to see Ronan’s door open, Ronan walking into the centre of the room, picking up his jacket from the floor.            Blue stood up. “Good morning,” she said. Ronan grunted, and headed towards the front door. “Hey, wait,” Blue said, walking forwards, feeling Adam stand behind her. “Where are you going?”            Ronan turned around and scowled at her. “None of your business,” he snarled.            “Don’t we need to talk about… about what happened?”            “No,” Ronan replied. He looked at Adam then, and lifted his chin. “Let’s try this shall we Parrish. You wanna talk about the fact that we don’t know whether that black shit was from my dreams, or a Cabeswater demon unmaking me?”            Blue turned to look at Adam, who was breathing heavily, decidedly not looking at Ronan, one hand on his neck and his eyes to the ground.            “Yeah,” Ronan said, and slammed the door behind him.            “Adam,” Blue said with meaning, crossing her arms.            Adam sighed and followed after him. Outside, Ronan had already opened the door of the BMW.            “Come talk to the psychics.”            “No.”            “Why not?”            “I’ve got plans.”            “Don’t be a dick, what plans do you have?”            “The fuck do you care Parrish you can barely look at me.”            “Don’t be like that. You know why… You have to understand – don’t you get it I can’t –”            “Yes I’ve heard this speech Parrish and I thought it was dumb the first time round so can we not.”            “Be mad at me if you want but please, go with Blue to 300 Fox Way. Please. Ronan. Ronan where are you going”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adam and Blue found themselves on the ley line, crunching through dry November leaves outside of the church where they’d buried Noah’s bones. They had called in on Fox Way on the way, Gansey, Blue had explained with pain in her voice, and Ronan, and Jimi had hugged her and Calla had given them appraising looks, and Maura had placed a hand on Adam’s shoulder, who’d shrugged and bit down his words. Keep looking, Maura had said to him, and it felt like she’d said it’s not time to give up, and he wasn’t sure if she’d meant Gansey, or scrying, or Ronan.            So they’d come to the site of the old church, with nothing magical to help them follow the ley line but memory and intuition. Adam shivered. It was cold, nothing like the warm blue of their picnic a few days ago. He wished he’d brought a coat.            They started walking.            Ostensibly they were looking for Gansey anyplace that seemed Gansey-like. But Adam didn’t think either of them really believed they would find him. Gansey didn’t disappear, so if he had, it was either intentional, or… Adam didn’t really want to think about the other option.            So instead he asked, “Have you applied to colleges yet?”            Blue considered before replying, “I’ve had other things on my mind,” a little tensely.            “That’s understandable,” said Adam gently, “but deadlines are coming up. I dunno. It’s weird to think that life continues around… all this.”            “Yeah…” Adam looked at Blue. She was biting her lip. “I mean, I already know that I’ll be applying to the community college,” here Adam nodded, “and I did ask about scholarships but it all just seems too hard, and not enough.”            “We could go through it together,” Adam offered. They’d reached the front line of the forest, and through it looked heavy and dark. Without Cabeswater tugging at his heart he wasn’t sure they had a chance at following the ley line, so instead they turned and walked along the line of trees that hugged the church clearing.            “What, you mean applications?”            “Yeah. We might be applying to different colleges but a lot of the scholarships crossover, and application forms usually cover the same stuff.” Adam shrugged. “If you want.”            He looked at Blue then, and she smiled cautiously, and it made something in his heart tug. “Ok, that’d be great actually. My mother didn’t go to college, and Calla went to community college. Persephone…” Here she paused, before continuing. “Persephone did but she wouldn’t have been any use anyway.”            “No,” Adam agreed, smiling at her. “She wouldn’t.”            “And Ronan and Gansey…” Blue started. “I don’t know if they’re even going to college.”            “No,” Adam agreed, smile waning. “I don’t know.”            They walked in silence for a bit then, reaching the edge of the trees as the grass below their feet turned into fields, turned into hills, intersected by roads and street signs and everything. They turned around to walk back the way they’d come.            “So where will you apply?” asked Blue. “Somewhere far away?”            Adam shrugged. That had been the plan. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.            “Harvard? Yale? That kind of thing?”            Adam cleared his throat. “Yeah. And I was thinking – maybe Georgetown.”            They’d made it back to the church. For the sake of thoroughness Adam walked on in the other direction, determined to cover the entire clearing against a rising feeling of hopelessness.            When Blue had caught up she said, “Georgetown, that’s not very far.” Adam shrugged. “That’s only a couple of hours away.”            “Yeah.”            Blue picked up a long stick that looked to Adam like it had dog bites on it. For a few steps she swatted it mildly at the tall grass, and then threw it away to the side.            “Do you know what you want to major in?”            “No. I dunno. Engineering, maybe?” He glanced at Blue to see surprise on her face. “Why, what do you think I should do?”            “Oh I don’t know,” Blue replied, “I’m just pleased to hear you’re not planning on majoring in finance or politics –”            Adam scoffed. “Don’t think Ronan would ever speak to me again. Or Gansey,” he added quickly, aware it didn’t make much sense.            Blue didn’t reply, and Adam wondered if she was thinking will he ever speak to any of us again, and wished he could start the whole conversation over. “We’ll find him,” he said softly, nudging his elbow into her arm.            Blue nodded tightly, and stopped walking. “Not here though,” she said. “Let’s go back.”            They got into the Hondayota and Adam drove. Ronan’s mother was dead.            He knew it on some level; knew the thought was resting somewhere – burning – but it didn’t feel like reality. Aurora had never fitted well with reality. But she was still dead, and sometimes Ronan felt his chest would explode with it.            He drove to 300 Fox Way, parked his car at the curb and slammed his fist on the horn, letting out a long continuous noise until faces appeared at the front window, the open door, Orphan Girl flying out and coming to greet him with a loud Kerah! He opened the door and took her into his arms, feeling himself shaking slightly. “I’m sorry,” he muttered as he felt grief and worry rolling off her. “Get in.”            Ronan drove them to the Barns.            It was a long drive, and Orphan Girl was quiet, staring out the window or playing with the buttons on the dash, switching between stations and flashing the emergency lights.            “Orphan Girl,” Ronan said, shifting gears and turning off the main road, “is a stupid name. What do you want to be called?” When she didn’t answer, he asked, “Do you have a different name?”            “Kerah,” she said, sounding insulted.            “That’s my name,” snapped Ronan.            “Nomen nescio.”            “Then we’ll give you one.”            “Kerah.”            “Melium est nomen bonum quam divitae multae,” Ronan said.            Orphan Girl was quiet at that, and considered. She showed Ronan her watch. “Adam,” she said.            Ronan spluttered. “No,” he said, “no you can’t be called Adam.” He felt a laugh rise up through his chest but it died in his throat.            “No,” said Orphan Girl, “Adam.” Ronan frowned, glancing at her and away. “Amor omnibus idem,” she said.            Ronan raised an eyebrow. “Freak,” he muttered.            Orphan Girl seemed pleased though, and went back to winding her watch. “Where shall we go now?” asked Blue.            Adam sighed. “I think we should just go home, Blue. I think we need to call Gansey’s parents and let them know he’s gone.”            After a pause, Blue let out a tremendous sigh. It was shaky, and Adam got the impression she was only barely holding it together. “Yeah, ok. But we promised Ronan we’d wait til the end of the day, and we don’t know where he is, maybe he’s looking for him too. So, I dunno. Wanna go do something? Do you have work?” Adam shook his head. “Ice cream?”            He shrugged, “Sure.” At the next junction he changed direction, and headed towards the ice cream place. Orphan Girl ran ahead of him into the house. Her energy exhausted him. He slammed the door of the BMW and walked more cautiously up to the front door. He’d been here yesterday, with Blue and Adam, but that had been restless, hurried, desperate; that had been Ronan in the kitchen while Blue had gone to the living room, Ronan in his own bedroom while Adam had gone through his parents’ things in theirs. Today he was alone, and he had all the time in the world, and he was cold.            Inside the front door he took a moment to shake his head, squeezing his eyes shut briefly, they’re all dead now, and he frowned, correcting his thought, mom and dad are dead, he still had Matthew and Declan, they’re always going to be in danger because of me.            He looked at the door to the living room and instead turned the other way, walking into the kitchen. “Orphan Girl!” he yelled. “Are you starving, are you dying, do you need anything?” A short, impatient Kerah! echoed from some distant corner of the house, and Ronan smiled. He began by cleaning – wiping down surfaces and under the toaster and in the sink. He made toast and forced himself to eat at least half of it. He walked to the living room faster than was necessary and tidied it, straightening a blanket on the sofa, picking up the basket of spilled logs, rearranging books, his thoughts furiously racing through lists of tasks he wanted to get done that day. His eyes avoided the spot on the sofa where he’d brought back his mother's blood.            After the downstairs was in an acceptable state Ronan left to go upstairs, considering. The house had four bedrooms, a couple of small rooms which had sofas or desks crammed inside, and the attic. He assessed the size of each room, the hard wood steps up to the attic, imagining hearing Orphan Girl’s hooves clattering up and down it each night, and eventually ended up in Declan’s old room. Sorry, man. Ronan found boxes in the attic and started packing all of Declan’s possessions.            After an hour Orphan Girl showed up in the doorway, hovering. “What?” she asked.            Ronan looked at her over his shoulder from the spot on the floor where he was reaching under Declan’s bed. He hoped he wasn’t going to find anything incriminating; on the other hand bothering Declan was one of his favourite hobbies, and he hadn’t blackmailed anyone in a really long time. “This will be your room,” Ronan said. “You can sleep here, keep your shit here, whatever.”            Orphan Girl sat on the floor against the wall and watched as Ronan took the last of the boxes up to the attic, took the navy bedsheets off the bed and replaced them with neutral beige tones, turned on the bedside lamp and off again. He spread his arms wide. “What do you think?”            Orphan Girl stood up, a little smile playing on her face. Her fingers were twitching, folding into each other, and she walked over to the bed. “Here?” she asked, patting it gently.            Ronan smiled and patted her head. “That’s right,” he said quietly, swallowing. He crouched down then and looked at her. “We’re gonna stay here from now on. I’m sorry I left you at Fox Way. This will be where you sleep. Ok?”            Orphan Girl looked at him, a wide smile on her face. She jumped onto the bed and bounced, trying to touch the ceiling with her hands. When she fell over she sat on the floor, examining a bed leg and giving it an experimental chew.            “Ok then,” Ronan said, and left her to it. Blue stuck a spoon gloomily into her ice cream.            “You’re the one who wanted ice cream,” Adam said, pointing his spoon at her.            “I do want ice cream,” said Blue, gritting her teeth. “I’m currently just experiencing more rage and sadness than is ideal when eating your favourite ice cream.” She licked her spoon.            Adam shifted in his seat. “Some part of me isn’t surprised,” he said quietly. There had always been a voice in his head which had said why would he be friends with me, and although he’d beaten that demon some time ago, it shifted in his head now, burning a hole through his protective borders.            “Me neither,” Blue said.            Adam looked at her. “But he loves you,” he stated simply. It was a fact that he wasn’t afraid of anymore. “I don’t understand why he’d just go.”            “I don’t know if he knows how to love anything after his precious Glendower,” Blue snapped, glaring at her bowl. And then her eyes filled with tears. “God what if he’s not ok, what if he’s hurt and in danger and we’re sitting talking about him like –”            “Ok, ok,” Adam said quickly, putting a hand on her arm. “Neither situation would be ideal, but we need to try not to panic. This is Gansey. He’s resourceful, he’s… whatever’s happened, he can take care of himself.”            Blue nodded. Adam poked at his ice cream with his spoon, but felt the weight of her eyes on him. “And what about Ronan?” she asked.            “What about him?” Adam asked, stilling, not meeting her eyes.            “He loves you, and you’re being an idiot.”            Adam looked outside, to where the Hondayota was parked. Ronan called it his shitbox and hearing his voice in his head now set his teeth on edge. “You,” he said slowly, quietly, “have no idea what you’re talking about, Blue.”            “Maybe not,” she replied, her voice firm, “but you forget that I came late to the party, and now that I’ve been filled in on everyone’s preferences it seems so obvious that you two have felt this way about each other for a while now. And I know you’re shaken after last weekend, I know you’re scared, we all are, but if you weren’t so stubborn you could just talk to him about it instead of acting like a damn arrogant raven boy and thinking you have to do all this by yourself.”            Adam looked down at his bowl. He’d only eaten half his ice cream, and it was the kind of waste he never usually let himself get away with, but at that minute all he could think was that he needed to leave, needed to be anywhere else. He stood up. “I need to go, I need to find a phone. We need to call Gansey’s parents.”            Blue raised her eyebrows at him. She’d clearly expected a different response, and Adam was surprised to see something soften in her face. But he hadn’t even said anything. “Ok,” she said, softer than before, and stood up too. “Drive me home, you can use our phone.” Ronan ran a hand over the small stones then picked up a hand-made cardboard sign which said “When you cultivate a healthy sense of self-love, you will be more generous and open to giving love away!” He scoffed loudly, and then realised he was dreaming.            It was the strange sort of realisation that came with realising he was somewhere he’d only ever been once before, and that he was alone. No one at the cash register, no tourists ogling crystals. And he knew because the minute he realised he was asleep Adam walked through the door.            He came up to Ronan and picked up a pearl bracelet. “God, who’d fall for this junk,” Adam said. Or rather, had said, when they’d stumbled across Magicke! over a year ago, a store downtown which promised positive energy and see your future at a time when Ronan hadn’t believed in either.            “The socially challenged,” said Ronan, recalling his reply.            “I think it was less politically correct than that, but I’ll allow it,” said Adam, smirking at him.            Ronan felt a smile tug at his lips.            Adam returned his attention to the basket of stones and rifled through it. “So what are you gonna call her?” he asked.            “I told her she could pick a name but she doesn’t seem very interested.”            “Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.”            “Come on Parrish,” said Ronan, rubbing his face. “It’s late, I haven’t got time for this.”            “Yeah ok,” said Adam, leaning over the basket now and searching more thoroughly. “You’re right. If we don’t name her soon she’ll start to disappear.”            “What?” But Adam was smiling. Ronan’s heart was thumping in his chest. “Fuck sake Parrish like my life isn’t exciting enough what are you looking for.”            Adam straightened, his fingers closed over something in his palm. “Her birthday’s in October, right?”            Ronan frowned. “Is it?”            “Isn’t that when you gave birth to her?”            Ronan rolled his eyes. “Birth is a construct,” he snapped.            “Said the dreamer,” said Adam, his eyes smiling at Ronan. “Tell her sorry her birthday present was late.” He placed his fist into Ronan’s palm. For a second Ronan allowed himself to feel the weight of Adam’s palm, the texture of his skin, the warmth of his hand in his. And then, with his other hand, he gently tugged open Adam’s fingers. “Mrs Gansey? Hello, it’s Adam Parrish. Yes I’m well, thank you ma’am. Yes that’s what I was calling about… actually we still haven’t heard from him, and we’re worried. No it’s not like him at all, to be gone for this long, he’s usually with one of us or at home or… Yes we checked with the headmaster. Yes we called Malory. I think we should probably… yes, that’s what we thought. Are you happy to call them or… ok. Ok. Sure. Yes. Please do, let us know what the police say. Ok. Thank you Mrs Gansey. Goodbye.” Ronan woke up, eyes snapping to the ceiling. He looked around, surprised to find himself in his own bed. He blinked wearily, the evening coming back to him: he and Orphan Girl had been outside, finding good stones and leaves to decorate her room with, and then he’d made dinner out of whatever he could find in the kitchen – frozen meat and beans and stock – and they’d eaten in companionable silence. The domesticity of it calmed his thoughts for the first time that day, and he’d found himself looking over at Orphan Girl and thinking this is going to be ok.            Now he shifted in his bed, looked out the window, felt the moonlight on his face, the hardness of the stone in his hand. He threw his legs off the bed and sighed, rubbing his face. He stood up and went into the hallway, finding Orphan Girl’s door and knocking before opening it.            Ronan had thought it would feel strange to see her sleeping in Declan’s old room, thought that memory and now would crash against each other, tense and unhappy. But Declan was never coming back here, he knew that really. This had never been Declan’s dream; Orphan Girl belonged here in a way he never had; this was Ronan’s home now, and Orphan Girl was one of his.            He walked softly over to the bed where she was spread half in, half out of the comforter, pillows having been thrown someway across the room. Ronan crouched and smiled, putting the small Opal stone on the bedside table. “Opal,” he said quietly, not wanting to wake her up. He’d tell her in the morning. “It was Adam’s idea, which I thought you’d like. Opal. Opal.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The missing persons report was printed in the local newspaper and on a website that looked like it had been created over a decade ago. Blue blinked at the text.            Name: Richard Campbell Gansey III
            Age: 17
            Sex: Male
            Race: White
            Hair: Brown, short, straight
            Eyes: Hazel
            Height: 5’8”
            Weight: 150 lbs
            Missing From: Henrietta, Virginia
            Missing Since: 3rd November
            Details: Nickname ‘Gansey’, wears contacts or glasses, severe allergy to bees (carries epipen), last seen wearing beige khakis, teal v-necked sweater and boat shoes.
            Contact: Henrietta Police DepartmentThat was all? Blue didn’t know whether to be amused or incensed. How could anyone spot Gansey, her Gansey, the raven boy, from that? She flicked a finger at the mouse angrily, scrolling up and down the page, trying to calm her thoughts. In her head she re-wrote the report over and over.            Missing! Gansey! Looks a bit like a king, or at least like he should have belonged to a different century. Will answer to “Dick” but look at you like you’ve kicked his dog. Often smells of mint. Bright orange Camaro reflected in pupils. Would score highly in trivia on medieval Wales. Traced my skin here, and here. Will never give up on you, even when you’ve given up on yourself. Strong dislike of bees, on account of them murdering him once. Trusting, but not foolish – do not offer false promises, or lies, or fortune. Takes kindly to honesty, and yoghurt.            There, Blue got stuck. There, she began to wonder how it was that anyone was ever found. She knew that Gansey looked a certain way, knew that technically whatever that was must be quantifiable; but regarded such a notion as undoable, laughable, almost unbearable. Knew that her family had labelled him the pretty one, knew that she enjoyed looking at him. That she’d recognise him in a crowd, expect others to be able to do the same.            But Gansey was… more. He wasn’t just handsome, average height average weight wore-glasses-when-tired Gansey. He was also ancient. He was tiredness in his eyes after several nights’ insomnia, after several days’ Ronan haranguing, after weeks of finding nothing, again; he was touching finger and thumb to face, looking off into a middle distance as he calmed his thoughts; he was a consequence of privilege and love and strength that sometimes caught Blue off guard as she was flung from exhaustion to wonder to irritation to awe.            How would anyone expect to find him, not knowing all of that?            Blue stood up suddenly, ripping the mouse from the computer. She breathed in, lips tight, eyes focused on the screen, feeling exhausted and irritated all at once. She took a few deep breaths, carefully placed the mouse back down on the desk, and headed downstairs. Adam frowned down at the newspaper gripped between sore hands, bristling against the cold. He was sat on the curb outside the factory, knowing he only had a few minutes before he had to go inside. It was Friday, and normally this would be his after-school shift, but he hadn’t gone to Aglionby today. That day, after the exhaustion of the last few days’ search for Gansey, after finally giving in and calling the Ganseys, and the police, had taken a toll on his usually strong-will to stay awake, alert, eyes open Adam; handing over responsibility for Gansey had knocked the final energy out of him. Today he’d stayed in bed. He’d been doing that a lot recently. But he needed the money, and he needed to leave the house to buy a copy of the Henrietta Star.            Adam knew Gansey wouldn’t like that they’d used his whole name in the report. Thought maybe even Dick Gansey might have been preferable to Richard Campbell Gansey III; wondered if it would put people off approaching him, if they recognised him from the photo but were wary about the implied status. Adam looked into his friends’ eyes, printed in low-res black and white, dulled by grey edges and serif fonts. Where are you. Ronan spent Friday at the Barns. He woke early and made coffee, stepping outside into brisk fall air and back again to grab his jacket. Orphan Girl – Opal – had pushed past him and run ahead, her opal stone cradled carefully in one palm. Ronan had stood, sipping his hot drink, watching clouds rise against a weary sun while Opal ran herself into exhaustion.            He returned his mug and stomped out into the first field with a bucket of food. At the noise of rattling food deer started moving towards him, only a few at first while others stood further back, at the edge of the woods, wary. Ronan reached the first one and petted her firmly. This was his favourite – she seemed like he’d dreamt her, her eyes made contact with his and she ducked her head at his touch, nuzzling at his adoring fingers. She was larger than the others, with an ugly black squelch crossing from one ear to her eye. He’d named her Audrey. She nudged her nose against Ronan’s bucket. “I know I know,” Ronan said, walking her over to the trough, “Features, what features,” he muttered, smirking, and he relented, emptying the bucket of food out into the trough.            After a few hours, Ronan headed back inside, straightening his back in exhaustion.            He opened and shut cupboards in the kitchen, picked at food, leant against a counter, eyes roaming to the living room. With resolve, he found a bucket under the sink and filled it with water, grabbing whatever cleaning supplies were there.            “Opal?” he called. He wasn’t really sure if he was calling her because he wanted her, or because he wanted her as far away as possible. She didn’t reply, so he headed into the living room.            The large red soft couch that claimed the middle of the room had been at the corner of his eyes for two days now. He hadn’t been able to bear looking directly at it. As he set the bucket down, stalling, he felt a wave of hot anger at himself. It was stupid. His mother hadn’t died on the couch, she’d died in Cabeswater. This was just blood. He just had to clean away the blood he’d brought back. He was worried the couch would be crusted with it. It wasn’t her blood anymore. She was dead. He just had to clean away the blood.            Ronan knelt by the couch, frowning at the floor, and slowly dragged his eyes up.            At first he couldn’t see anything. Hesitantly, he shifted his body forward, and eventually put his fingers to the couch, searching, even feeling across the cushion for any feel of dried blood. There was nothing. He frowned then, and stood up. He lifted cushions off the couch and turned them over, and placed them back again, neatly, patting them into place.            There was no blood. The couch was spotless. There were no crumbs under the cushions, no tea stains, no lost pens.            There had been so much blood. It had been thick, and being covered in it had felt completely different to how Ronan had imagined: it had been darker, more dark than red, more thick than watery, more alive and real and permeable clinging sticky to his skin, smelling of iron and skin and dirt and hell.            Ronan looked away now, his heart racing, feeling sick with the memory. He found a spot on the furthest wall, between the clock and a hanging photograph of his parents, and took a deep breath. Oh, he thought. This was why he hadn’t let himself remember. This was drowning in thought, and pain, heavy eyes and a hand to his forehead, rubbing furiously over his head, as if the very action could will it all away, a wave crashing over him. This was feeling sick and spinning wheels and the noise the Camaro had made as it crunched into the lamppost; everything broken and awful.            Realising he wouldn’t be able to will away the memory, Ronan opened his eyes, focussing on his breathing. As he looked at the doorway to the hall, and the stairs, he remembered. While Maura and Mr Grey had taken care of the spare Laumonier, the scene, Opal, Adam had dragged him upstairs, had taken his shirt off and replaced it with another in a smooth motion Ronan hadn’t processed. Had moved him to the bathroom, taken a cloth to his hands, his face, cleaned up what he could on the other boy’s still unmoving frame, had somehow got Ronan into the car, had driven his BMW to Fox Way, Maura and Mr Grey following close behind. Adam hadn’t spoken much except to say we’re going upstairs, lift your arms, I’m gonna clean you up a bit, no get in the passenger seat, little reassurances that had grounded Ronan in the present, had let him exist enough to consent to the practicalities without having to face what had just happened.            Ronan blinked and looked at the couch. He thought back to yesterday, and remembered that while him and Blue had been in one of the barns, Adam had disappeared. Ronan lost his temper and stalked back to the house, finding Adam in the kitchen cleaning his hands in the sink, had shouted Parrish some time today, Adam drying his hands on a tea towel, following Ronan out, I’m coming.            Something tugged inside Ronan and he stomped outside. He made his way towards the first field and just started walking, jacket forgotten, boots sliding easily through wet grass, skylight dimming, his breath coming out in shudders like smoke, and at some point Opal had come running out of a hedge or a tree or a rock, had run rings around him, had shown him all the stones she’d found that she thought looked like her opal, and he’d nodded, had accepted a stone in cold dry fingers, had felt it in his palm all rough texture against rough texture, had watched her bobbing head as she exhausted herself against the day, had looked at the wet grass curled around his boots, at the line of trees curling at the foot of the hill, at the dissipating clouds in the paling orange sky. Adam had early shifts at the garage most Saturday mornings; it was usually how he justified spending time on Glendower, Gansey, the others. It was habit, so it didn’t bother him as much as it might have when his alarm clock went off at 6am. He blinked awake, startled, but accepting, getting up and dressed in the cold dark, ducking against the familiar low ceiling and brushing his teeth with his eyes closed. It was habit, so it didn’t bother him as much as it might that there was no sign of the sun as he stepped out into the dark of the night. He drove the short distance to Boyd’s and parked, getting out and walking up to the locked door, cold fingers and sore wrists fumbling in his pockets for the keys.            It was habit, so it shouldn’t have bothered him that Ronan knew exactly where and when to find him.            He heard the car behind him in the cold still morning, and turned, panicked.            Ronan got out the driver’s seat and Adam held up a hand, stopping him from walking round the side of the car. “No,” he said, quickly.            Ronan smiled, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. “No?” he repeated, cocking his head and leaning into his folded hands on top of the car.            “I don’t think,” Adam started, and then tried again, “we shouldn’t be alone together.”            “Afraid of my sparkling charisma?”            “Of my lack of control,” snapped Adam, impatient, tense, terrified. His hand shook slightly in front of him but he didn’t lower it.            “I’m flattered, Parrish, but it’s not your fault I look this good.”            “Stop it,” Adam said, and Ronan finally stopped smiling. “Just stop, you know what I mean.”            Ronan backed away from the car but didn’t tried to move round it. He stuffed his hands in pockets, glaring at Adam. “So what,” he started, voice low. “This is it? You’re done? Thanks for cleaning up her blood by the way that was very charitable of you.”            Adam heard the insult but ignored it. “Come to Fox Way. Talk to the psychics.”            Ronan shook his head. “No.” They were both silent for a while. Ronan smiled. “What, that’s it? That’s your only offer? Poor bargaining skills, Parrish. Ok then my turn. How about you stop letting your cowardice run your every move.”            “Cowardice?” Adam felt like Ronan had punched him. Coward. Better to be called cold. selfish. hurtful. But coward? “I’m doing this for you.” Ronan laughed and Adam was suddenly hit with a new wave of exhaustion, this one worse than waking up in the middle of a cold winter night and dragging himself to work. Adam was unable to keep the frustration from his voice as he said, “I’m not explaining this again. I could hurt you, and I won’t risk that.”            Ronan lifted his chin. “You’re delusional, and I seriously think you need someone to fucking talk to, like maybe a therapist can talk you through your ‘attachment issues’ –” Adam stilled at Ronan’s use of air quotes, and his hand fell, “because you and I both know that the only reason you attacked me was because the demon, which is dead –” Ronan raised his voice louder over the sounds of Adam’s interjections, “and Cabeswater, which is gone, used you. And now you're using some dreamt black shit as an excuse to back off. Fine. But what I don’t get,” and now Ronan's voice was booming, low and hard, drowning out Adam’s halfhearted attempts to interrupt, drowning out day, cutting through the night like a knife, “is why you cleaned up the blood.” He paused, breathing heavily, staring Adam down. His voice levelled out as he said, “Whatever you might think Parrish I don’t need you. I can fix my own mess. That’s what I came here to say.”            Adam frowned, suddenly lost. Ronan’s furious tirade hadn’t ended up where he’d thought it would, and he scrabbled at words, not finding any that fitted. “Ronan,” he started.            “We’re done,” Ronan said, and he got back into the car, speeding away before Adam could even blink.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Blue blinked awake. She hadn’t remembered falling asleep, hadn’t remembered the hours passing between. Couldn’t fathom sleeping well at all. She sat up slowly, leaning against her pillows, rubbing her eyes.            She checked the clock on her bedside table. Gansey had been missing for 72 hours.            A peeling piece of bark caught her eye and she got out of bed, sticking it back on the wall into place.            Blue wondered, as she had many times in her life, about the nature and circularity of time.            Her family had always insisted that time was circular, but also followed a path; that you could see the future, but often it had already happened, somewhere; that you could predict events but that it was a promise, not a definitive. Blue was tired of contradictions dressed up as complements.            She moved methodically around the room, glue stick in one hand, green pen marker in the other, fixing, curating, provoking paper and bark back into place.            She wondered, as she had many times in her life, what might have been if she hadn’t known.            Would she have kissed Adam? Would that have been better?            She felt restless. And angry, all at once. Angry that she had let Gansey under her skin. Angry that she’d trusted a boy, a raven boy, angry that she’d fallen in with any of them. Angry that she’d allowed them in close enough to have to feel like this.            Gansey had been missing for 72 hours, and she no longer thought it wasn’t his choice.            Blue let the objects fall from her hands, threw open the door and marched downstairs.            Unfortunately Maura was the first person she came across. “Why did you even tell me?” Blue demanded, unreasonably vague and sharp this time of the day.            Maura blinked at her from where she was stood lazily at the sink, brushing a plate without much hope. “Why did I tell you what?” she repeated.            “That if I kissed my true love he’d die,” Blue said, looking away and wrenching the fridge door open as she felt heat crawl up her neck.            “Well, because it was your reading,” Maura said simply, looking at the plate in her hand as thought it were part of the problem. Early morning light spun through the window and created a rainbow shimmer in the bubbles and Blue wanted to pick the plate out of the sink and smash it on the ground.            “That doesn’t mean you have the right to play with that sort of power,” Blue snapped, returning her attention to the fridge and forgetting why she was there. She slammed the door shut, and none of her anger went with it, so she opened the door and slammed it a second time.            Maura walked over to her and picked her fingers off the handle gently. “Is this really a criticism of my entire career, personality, friends, goals, aspirations – or do you want to talk about Gansey?”            Blue turned around and walked into the garden. For a moment she remembered running away, remembered the adrenaline of leaving and the anticipation of getting caught; placed a steadying hand on the bark of the tree as she’d remembered Adam doing on the wall of her bedroom, weeks or was it months ago; time was circular, it had already happened, it hadn’t happened yet; it wasn’t Adam after all, it was her hand snaking gently across the bark, fingernails scratching lightly; it was her neck hot from the embarrassment of anger; from snapping at Maura; from the words she’d hurled at Adam. Blue sat gently at the base of the tree, leaned her head against it, and closed her eyes, imagining it was her father there, and taking shallow breaths. It was afternoon, though the only way Ronan could tell was Opal snoozing gently on the floor of the living room, and sunlight had dimmed. He shifted, irritated, on the couch, shoulder blades scratching material, and glared up at the ceiling, a ball gripped between his fingers. He contemplated sleeping, not for the first time that hour.            The morning had been a blur. After racing back, away from Adam, he'd collapsed into bed, had listened to music restlessly for a few hours until sunlight had struck his face. He remembered getting up – not bothering to engage with the part of his brain that urged him not to – showering, waking Opal, making them breakfast, asking her not for the first time “why do I bother making you pancakes if you’re just going to chew on the fork” – pottering outside with her while he repaired a fence and she stomped in puddles, splattering mud over both of them. Remembered squabbling with her about a bath before turning to fetch the hose and chasing her round the front garden. Allowing her to get him back, allowing a small smile before picking her up and dumping her in the bathroom, taps running. Changing out of dripping wet clothes, pulling on dry ones without bothering to shower. Making coffee downstairs, picking at bread dispiritedly. Wondered about the sudden domesticity of his life; who was Opal to him, really? Who was he to her? Did she really need him to make her food and run her baths, and should he be doing anything else? The weight of the responsibility of taking her out of his dreams and making her whole filled his whole body with heat; he’d thought it would be the same as Chainsaw; it hadn’t been the same as Chainsaw; he wanted it; he didn’t want it.            Remembered Chainsaw appearing them, cawing at him gently, attacking his hair. Flying away and leading him to the living room where Opal – smelling only vaguely of lemon – was zonked out on the floor, and where there was an unopened box of crackers on the coffee table. Remembered opening the box, shaking a few out for Chainsaw to attack contentedly, remembered throwing himself down on the couch, taking in the gentle sound of his family and his own breathing.            Didn’t remember time passing, or deciding to do any of it.            Ronan gripped his fingers and blinked down at the ball, remembering it was there. He threw it up in the air, and caught it. Threw, and caught. Threw, and caught.            For the second time that day, Ronan let himself think about Adam.            Thinking about Adam was like trying to conjugate a verb. Wait. He had to focus on the word, feel his way through every letter, try out its sounds and working parts on his tongue. I thought this was what we both wanted. Had to consider whether he already knew the pattern; had to acknowledge when he didn’t. Of course it is. Had to run through other well-trodden patterns in his head, sliding each across in his brain to see if any fit. Had to acknowledge when none did. Want to get out of here?  Had to consider the possibility that this conjugation was irregular, that if he hadn’t learnt it yet and it didn’t work like any others then he wouldn’t be able to use it in conversation. don’t you get it I can’t            Ronan threw the ball hard enough up in the air that it struck the ceiling and rebounded off into a corner. Chainsaw cawed Kerah at the same time that Opal mumbled Kerah in her sleep before turning over and breathing heavily once more.            Ronan closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of his dreams. Adam wanted to close his eyes. Wanted it like his lungs wanted oxygen, like he wanted Gansey back, like he wanted to call Blue, like he wanted Ronan.            He gripped his hands tighter on the wheel. His shift at Boyd's had been long, and tiring, and Katy had been working there today. Six months and she’d finally had the nerve to say want to grab a coffee later? no? how about a beer? Had chuckled with one hand on his arm, five years older than him without a hint of shame in her question. Adam had managed a smile and said I can’t today, maybe some other time. Now, the memory made him sigh knowing he would eventually have to explain he wasn’t interested. He hadn’t figured out how to do that yet, Katy was nice enough and he had to work with her. He hoped she’d take the hint eventually.            Adam had been sitting in his car in the staff car park for five minutes. He bit his lower lip. Fingers fidgeted at the wheel, and then moved to turn on the radio. He turned on the ignition, then off again, hand rubbing at his face. He needed to sleep. He drummed a finger against his bobbing knee, watched the yellow-black of the sky as it moved across his windshield. He yawned, and blinked tightly. He needed to sleep. He didn’t know where to go. Ronan was tired of dreaming. So tired he could feel the edges of it crumbling with the effect of too-little effort; a dull grey pain that you couldn’t look at too hard without your eyes closing. He frowned at the trees that surrounded him. He hadn’t dreamt of Cabeswater since it had vanished. Except in Dollar City. That hadn't been Cabeswater either. This wasn’t Cabeswater. This was Cabeswater.            He was on one of the fields at the edge of the Barns. It snaked up a hill and ended in a row of trees that he hadn’t explored for many years. This field used to hold cows, or sheep; sometimes goats. Niall Lynch hadn’t played favourites. These days it was a dirt track, a place Ronan sometimes brought his car to run rings and then watch the sun set on the hood of his car, a beer in one hand and Chainsaw in the other, breath coming out of his mouth like starlight.            Today, it was covered in trees.            Ronan wasn’t sure he could have explained what made them different to the natural line of trees that marked the forest that he’d always considered the boundary between his home and the outside world. The non-dreamt trees. No, that wasn’t right. He supposed God was a dreamer too.            He looked at his boots. The forest floor wasn’t littered with the usual leaves, pine cones, bracken. It was still the soft overgrown field he knew, and as he walked he found the edge of a track made from a fast and unforgiving tyre. He looked up. The trees went on above him for hours, miles, days. He could barely see midnight through the tops of them.            What was the point of this? He felt irritated, bored by problems he couldn’t solve, patterns he couldn’t trace.            After he’d been walking through the forest for a while, walking downhill with the intention to see how far this went, how much of his home this dream would cover, he suddenly heard a shout to his right. He spun. No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t heard anything, he’d just felt a shiver run through his body. No, that wasn’t right either. Then he was throwing up. He fell to his knees and retched on the forest floor, fingers grabbing at grass. No, that wasn’t right either. He was melting. No, he was – Ronan! – lying face-down on the floor, no, he was – Ronan, can you hear me? Fuck – on his back, grasping heaving desperately trying to get anything to his lungs, no he was – Kerah! Ronan, Ronan Lynch, Ronan fucking Lynch don’t you dare – on fire, dry grass catching either side of him and snaking up the trees, the whole forest lighting up in seconds, aflame, hot, retching, itching, melting. Ronan’s eyes snapped open at the sensation of his head striking the floor. He lifted his head up gently, wincing, and rolled over onto his back, allowing himself to keep his eyes shut tight a few seconds longer. Above him, or next to him, he thought he heard heavy breathing, a sigh, someone moving to the floor, a thud as they landed. Ronan didn’t want to know. Wanted to be swallowed back into sleep. Wanted to see if the forest fire would have killed him.            Tentatively Ronan opened his eyes.            Declan Lynch was sat next to him, one arm on his knee, one hand raking through his hair. His eyes mirrored the fire in Ronan’s dreams. “Ronan what the fuck,” he growled out. Ronan looked behind him to see the rest of his family gathered there; Matthew stood anxiously, almost hopping from one foot to the other, Chainsaw peering at him from Matthew’s shoulder while Opal sat on the floor crying by his leg.            Ronan pulled one elbow under him, used the other arm to pull himself up and lean against the couch. “It’s a family reunion,” Ronan muttered, touching a hand gently to his cheek and feeling something dried there. He pulled away to see his fingers covered in what looked like black blood. He considered it for a second then said, “Nice to see you too, Declan.”            Declan looked like it took everything in him not to hit Ronan. “Nice to see you – Ronan I’ve been leaving messages on your phone for days…”            “Oh, that was you?”            “And so we just came, we had to come Ronan – you call us last weekend to say mom died because of that freak demon, you offer very little explanation by the way I had to hear from Gansey how you almost got unmade by that thing – and then Blue calls me to say you’re having some sort of fucking episode or something, and then you don’t answer your phone for days, so we came Ronan we had to come – I was worried about you, and we have church tomorrow anyway, and, Matthew thought…” here he faltered.            “I wanted to do something for mom,” Matthew said quietly. Ronan risked a glance at his younger brother. He wondered how much he knew, how much he’d figured out. His heart thud against his chest.            “And then we arrive to find you having a fit, your bird and orphan girl freaking out, and black blood all over your face. What the hell Ronan, what haven’t you been telling me?”            Ronan forced himself to count to ten. He made it to five. “I haven’t lied,” he said.            Declan spluttered. “So if I hadn’t asked Ronan do you think there’s a possibility you might be dying you wouldn’t have told me? What would have happened to you if we hadn’t got here in time? What would have happened to orphan girl? To Matthew? What about Parrish, Ronan?”            Ronan punched him. It was difficult from his position on the floor, and the way the dream had taken all the breath from his body, all the real weight from his bones, and so the punch didn’t mean very much, was just a way to take Declan’s face away from his. Declan’s head cracked sideways with the force of Ronan's fist against his cheekbone and he didn’t straighten immediately. Time stilled while Ronan waited for Declan to retaliate. He didn’t.            Ronan was the first to take a breath. He was instantly sorry. Didn’t know how to take it back, whether he’d already punched Declan or if he could just decide not to.            The Lynches didn’t apologise.            Instead Ronan put a hand on the floor between himself and his brother and ducked his head. “I haven’t lied,” Ronan said again, “I don’t know what this is, I don’t know what’s happening. This is only the second time… I guess the third. I thought maybe, when it happened at Monmouth, maybe it was just a dream. It hadn’t happened since, so…”            “So you thought you could be reckless with your own life?” Declan said, voice quieter but with fire still behind it.            Ronan sighed, and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t know how to fix it.”            “Where’s Gansey? Why are you even here, why aren’t you at Monmouth? Why aren’t Parrish and Blue here with you?”            Ronan looked up at Declan. He considered. “In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni,” he said, and trees burned behind his eyes.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Adam awoke to a knock on his front door.            He rubbed his eyes, willing himself out of sleep. He stretched out his muscles, hearing them creak, feeling the satisfaction in limbs rolling out, skin tightening, breath held still; and then relaxed, and swung his feet to the carpet. His eyes remained closed, stubborn against the day.            There was another knock on the door, less gentle this time.            He considered, briefly, just not answering it. He didn’t think whoever it was would believe he’d be out at this time on a Sunday morning, or that he couldn’t be woken with enough persistence, but for a second he considered just not caring.            Vague, unformed images still flashed on the back of his eyelids. A mirror, a sink overflowing, Ronan, unmaker. He held his hand still against his forehead, reminding himself of what was real and what wasn’t. It wasn’t as comforting a process as it used to be.            A third knock. Adam sighed, opened his eyes, and went to answer it.            “Adam!”            Adam’s eyes widened. He allowed himself a second’s tightening of the stomach, as relief or disappointment rushed through him, gone as soon as it had come. “Matthew?”            Matthew beamed. “Hello, how ya doing?”            Adam tried to remember the last time he’d been so lost for words. “Yeah, I’m… yeah, I’m good, Matthew. How are you?”            Matthew’s smile held tight, but Adam thought he could see something lessen in his eyes. “Me and my brothers are going to church today,” he said, “and no one’s killed each other yet, so I’m pretty good.”            Adam nodded, understanding better than he’d like. “I’m sorry about Aurora,” he managed, barely above a mumble; and suddenly Ronan was back on the Barns’ couch, still and unmoving, covered in blood. Adam blinked and it was gone.            “Thanks,” Matthew said quietly, fingers interlacing and unlocking again. “We’ll be ok.”            Adam believed it, and it reminded him why he was so fond of Matthew. His absolute resilience. “So, what’s up?”            “Well, actually me and Declan came down to check on Ronan but also I wanted to look through mom’s things, and we thought we might have a bit of a, you know, memorial service. I wanted to do it in the forest, but Ronan said that’s not a good idea.” Adam managed no more than a slight drop of his gaze to the railing at the surely half-lies Matthew had been fed. “So we’re going to Nino’s after church for lunch, and then back to the Barns, and you’re invited.”            Adam’s mind had wandered, sifting through possible versions of the story that Matthew might have been told, but at the last two words he locked onto Matthew’s eyes. Before he could remember his manners he blurted, “Who is?”            Matthew hesitated. “Uh, you are!” he said brightly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we don’t have many family friends,” he said conspiratorially, somehow smile growing even wider. “It’s nice having Ronan’s friends around, he fights less with Declan.” Adam couldn’t remember that being true, but he supposed it must be – a wave of sympathy flittered through him as he studied Matthew’s calm expression.            “I thought they were getting on better now that you guys have moved to D.C.?” he asked, giving himself time to think.            “Yes,” Matthew agreed, nodding. “But things are a bit tense after… mom.”            Adam recalled that it was after Niall’s death that things had supposedly spiralled between Ronan and Declan. He felt a little breathless suddenly; the unending and cruel ramifications of what had happened to them all were occasionally absolutely unbearable. “I can imagine,” he said eventually.            “So! Lunch?” Matthew smiled at him, arms crossed behind his back.            Adam considered. “Uh, Matthew is this you inviting me or… does Ronan know –”            “Matthew!” Ronan had appeared at the bottom of the steps. He gripped the railing tightly, glaring at his brother. He was wearing one of his nicer pairs of black jeans, white shirt and black tie with a dark jacket, neck shifting in his collar as though the whole thing itched against his skin. Adam looked away. “What are you – we were looking for you man.”            Matthew turned. “God, Ronan, I was inviting him to lunch, like we said.”            “I didn’t think – look it’s about to start, we’re going to be late. And don’t say God like that it’s a fucking Sunday.”            “Since when do you care about tardiness,” Matthew teased, already moving away from Adam. He turned around, one hand raised in farewell. “We’ll come get you after church,” he said, eyes bright and confident. Ronan had already started walking away, and Matthew followed, an unreasonable bounce in his step.            Adam closed the door. Ronan ducked his head through the church doorway, not because it was particularly low but out of the natural habit of being tall. Matthew shuffled past him, finding his place next to Declan, separating the two. Ronan rubbed a hand gently over his jaw before sitting down. He looked at the hands clasped on his lap.            It had started like this.            Ok great Ronan, now’s the part where you’re going to be honest with me
            I am being honest with you for fuck’s sake when have I ever lied to you

Oh don’t give me that I never lie crap how about your dreams, Greenmantle, dad, Aglionby

Jesus fuck Declan I didn’t lie to you about any of that, and I never promised Aglionby that was Gansey

I don’t care alright just tell me the truth, what is all this?
            At some point Matthew had wandered off to the kitchen, found old cheese and passable bread, had fried them, had tried to use the sizzling oil to drown out the sounds of the fight.            How do you know about Parrish
            What do you mean

You said – before – when you said I was being reckless with my own life, and the people I was leaving behind

Well I don’t know what you’re asking but I was going to mention Gansey too if you hadn’t punched me, what do you mean how do I know about Parrish

Nothing

Ronan –

Nothing alright

Jesus fuck Ronan are you kidding me

Just leave it, it’s nothing anyway

Fuck, what do you mean just leave it? What do you mean it’s nothing when you were terrified someone had told me – as if you’d ever tell me yourself

You’re surprised I wouldn’t have told you

What’s that supposed to mean

Oh I don’t know how about “jesus fuck”

You startled me alright? And, I don’t know Ronan, it doesn’t sound very –

Catholic?

I was going to say easy

That’s not what your problem is and you know it
            For a while Matthew had distracted his brothers with food, and quiet conversation about D.C., and the friends he’d made there. At his suggestions for the memorial though, Declan had regained his fury.            I still don’t understand – I feel like there’s something missing here Ronan
            What, what else do you want, I’ve told you – they awoke a demon, it unmade Cabeswater, it got mom alright I don’t know what you want me to say

Just tell me none of this was your fault
            That was when the second punch had been thrown, and Matthew felt he couldn’t really blame it. Straight into Declan’s ear, either a result of quick reflexes on Declan’s part, or perhaps not-really-wanting-to-hurt on Ronan’s; Matthew thought probably the former. Declan had responded with a fist to Ronan’s jaw, more out of habit than real feeling, because a second later his face had gone white-blank, perhaps replaying his final words in his throbbing ear, and he’d stumbled behind the armchair, pressing a hand hard against his head.            You son of a bitch
            I – I’m sorry
            And, later            Ok so you’re telling me that it’s exactly the same as when you were being unmade – except it’s happening in your dream, not in reality, and that it stops as soon as someone manages to wake you up right?
            Yeah

And the two dreams, they both had cabeswater in

Uh-huh

Ok

Any conclusions there D.C.

Stop calling me D.C.

I will when you stop acting like one

Shut up, I’m thinking – look it seems to me that it’s likely this is not dangerous. You said we have literal proof of the demon’s demise right –

Who says demise

Quit it, seriously – if the demon’s gone there should be no force capable of unmaking you right? So isn’t it likely this is some really fucked-up level dreaming?

I don’t know, it’s not like I can consult the guidebook

You can though – why haven’t you gone to Fox Way?

Adam made it to 300 Fox Way in record time, skidding his bike into the front lawn as he leapt off it and forced himself to walk calmly up the drive. It was a blisteringly cold day and he regretted the impulse to ride his bike, wanting to feel the rush of air on his skin, where he now rubbed at his cheeks with his gloves.            The front door was open, as it always was. “Blue?” he called, cautiously. Adam hadn’t been here in a week. He held himself firm against the threat of remembering.            Blue’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. She didn’t look sleepy, but she was wearing pyjamas with watermelons on them. “Adam,” she said, coming down the stairs, and giving him a small smile. “What are you doing here?”            Adam shrugged. “Uh, I was wondering what you were doing for lunch?”            Blue raised an eyebrow in question, and walked away to the kitchen. Adam followed and watched her hunt in the fridge for a yoghurt. “Obviously I have an expansive social life outside the three of you and will have to check my busy diary for commitments.” She smiled at him around a spoon, and Adam sat down heavily in a chair.            “Thank god,” he said. “I need you to come to Nino’s.”            “Ok sure, but why? What’s up?”            Adam looked away from her then. This would have been so much easier with Gansey around. “Declan and Matthew are in town, and Matthew invited me to lunch with them, and then back to the Barns. It’s for Aurora, they’re… I don’t know.”            “Well, that’s nice,” Blue said eventually. “It’s nice they can do something to remember her, given they can’t have a normal funeral.”            “And I know that must be eating him up,” Adam said quietly, finding a spot outside the window where a leaf was curling against glass, “not being able to give her a proper goodbye.”            Blue murmured in agreement. “And what, you need back up?”            Adam didn’t reply immediately. He heard Blue shift as she hopped to sit on the counter, feet resting on a chair. “I don’t know if Matthew was inviting me or if – they all were. And in any case I’m sure he’d like you to be there, if this is a family thing.”            He didn’t have to look at her to see the expression on Blue’s face. “Sure,” she said then, sounding almost chipper about it. “Lunch with you and your not-boyfriend and his asshole brother. Sounds like a great time.”            Adam sighed heavily, putting his face in his hands. “I wish Gansey –” he started, then stopped. There was no point. Blue was silent. “I don’t know how this all became so complicated. Wasn’t this supposed to be over a week ago? Do you remember the picnic?”            He looked at Blue then and she was smiling, but it didn’t look like happiness. “Yeah,” she said. After a second she added quietly, “I haven’t heard from the police, or Helen or – have you?”            Adam shook his head and looked back out the window, not allowing himself to run through his list of places Gansey might be. They sat like that for a while, Blue eventually getting a second yoghurt for Adam, putting it in front of him with a glass of water, pulling a chair out and sitting together, watching as the sunlight grew in confidence.            “You haven’t actually told me what happened,” Blue said, snapping Adam out of his reverie.            “What?”            “With you and Ronan.” Adam looked down at his hand, clenching his knuckles. Blue waited, and when he didn’t offer anything she added, “Is it just because you’re afraid of your body, that his dreams this week might mean it’s not over, that you could be possessed again – is that all it is, or is there something else?”            Adam didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be having this conversation. Wished he hadn’t come, wished he didn’t have to go to lunch. Wanted to go, despite everything. “No,” he said quietly, “there’s nothing else.”            He knew Blue would understand, and hoped she’d leave it; but Blue never left anything. “And does he know that’s all it is?” she asked.            Adam shrugged, but then said in a rush, “No, I think he thinks – he didn’t ask, but I think he thinks I’m using it as an excuse to get out of it.”            “Oh,” she said softly, and Adam ate the last bit of his yoghurt just for something to do with his hands. “Well,” said Blue, her tone firming up. “That’s fixable Adam. We can fix this.”            “You sound like Gansey,” Adam muttered, not meeting her eyes.            “Well someone has to.” He smiled. “You should tell him.”            “What’s the point? I can’t trust myself to be around him until we know whether he’s safe, whether I’m safe to be around.”            Blue nodded, considering. She stood up and stretched, lifting her arms in the air. “Well, what would it take for you to believe that we’re all safe?”            Adam looked at her. “I asked him to come see your family, but he wouldn’t. I want to try scrying but I’m…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t want to say scared, because he wasn’t, but it was something like longing and something like terrified it won’t be there.            “Ok,” Blue said, practically rubbing her hands together. “Then that’s what we’ll do. I’m going to have a shower and get ready, you should have another yoghurt.” Ronan sat back down, letting his hymn book drop to his lap. He lips remained closed, as they had throughout the hymn, instead letting Matthew’s voice hum around him, mingling with everyone else’s.            Declan’s words rang through his ears like a church bell. Just tell me none of this was your fault.            He gritted his teeth together, poked roughly at the hem of his jeans, closed his eyes.            As the priest spoke Ronan let the meanings rush through his head, if not the words. Kindness, he acknowledged. Forgiveness, sure.            But he found himself returning to an old habit: he’d allowed himself to acknowledge, just once a week, the part that hated himself. A lot had happened since then. It had stopped, without him really noticing. Today, he allowed himself a fragment of it: like opening a box to peak inside, then slamming the lid shut when you heard footsteps.            Just tell me none of this was your fault.            Ronan knew what Adam would say, what Blue would say. If Gansey were here he would say Lynch come on how could any of us have foreseen what would happen to Cabeswater? We all agreed            But Gansey wasn’t here. And the truth was Ronan should have foreseen it. Should have known. Had been the only one to know that Cabeswater was taken from his dreams. His dreams which poisoned, which invited, which infected. Shouldn’t have trusted something so volatile with his mother. It was selfishness that had put her there, and he knew it. It had been him, not the others. It was his –            Matthew’s hand gripped Ronan’s, gently. He opened his eyes and realised he’d been clenching his book to within an inch of its life, shoulders hunched over, tense and unmoving. He let Matthew’s hand guide him back to the present, drew in shallow breaths until air dropped into his lungs, stood when Matthew stood, opened his hymn book to page 36.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ronan was out of mass first; their usual pew was near the back, and he didn’t have any patience left. His bones felt restless, itching to escape the place where he pictured her dying over and over again.            Outside he walked round the corner of St. Agnes, half way between the church door and Adam’s, leaned against the cold stone wall, and gulped in lungfuls of air. He only had a few seconds before Matthew found him, and he needed to get himself together. His skin was hot. He loosened his tie and undid the top buttons; untucked his shirt and managed to roll up the sleeves of his jacket. He looked down at his shoes and scuffed the top of one with the other. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to wrench Ronan Lynch, attoning for the sins of matricide away and replace it with Ronan Lynch, regular asshole. At last he took in a deep breath, and that’s when Matthew found him.            Matthew smiled. “Alright buddy?”            Ronan looked behind him to see Declan approaching, scowling. “Couldn’t get away faster?” Declan snapped. “How do you manage to look this shit so quickly?”            “Practice and dedication,” replied Ronan with no real feeling. He looked at Matthew. “Well? You invited him, go get him.”            Matthew left and Ronan watched as he skipped up Adam’s stairs. He felt Declan move closer.            “He’s coming to lunch?”            “According to Matthew. Wasn’t my idea so don’t start.” Ronan walked to where the BMW was parked a few cars away, and stopped when he got to the driver’s door, knowing he couldn’t leave without his brothers.            Declan leant his hands over the passenger side. “So wait, if Parrish is coming with us I need a clarification – are you two… together?”            “No,” said Ronan quickly, avoiding Declan’s gaze, looking back to where Adam had appeared at his apartment door, exchanging words with Matthew, Blue beside him. Ronan tensed.            Declan didn’t reply, which wasn’t a surprise – he didn’t need to know the details, just enough not to make a fool of himself over lunch.            And then everyone was there, and there was an awkward silence, one which Ronan didn’t particularly feel like breaking.            “So,” said Blue, looking from Declan to Ronan. “Shall we take one car or two?”            Ronan opened the door of his car and sat in the drivers seat, slamming it shut. He thought he heard Adam say we’ll meet you there before Declan and Matthew got in and he could race away. Adam pulled into the car park, not surprised to see the BMW there. Even if they’d left first, Ronan would still have beaten them.            He lingered in the car, fingers feeling the leather of the steering wheel, eyeing the building warily.            “It’s just lunch,” Blue said. He didn’t look at her. “Come on, we’re doing this for Matthew. Just let them talk about their mom, we’ll go to the Barns and, I don’t know, what do people do – burn her clothes or something…”            Adam looked at her then. “Burn her clothes?” he repeated, horrified.            “Well I don’t know,” said Blue exasperatedly, opening the car door, “regular people are weird about these things.”            Adam smiled at regular people and followed her into Nino’s.            Inside he spotted the Lynches at one of the larger booths, where Declan was sat in the corner with Matthew in the middle and Ronan at the outer edge. Adam guessed he was mapping escape routes in his head as he glared at waiters and picked at a rogue hemline. Blue grabbed his wrist and dragged him forward. “Hi,” she said, climbing into the free bench and scooting along. This left Adam opposite Ronan. He didn’t meet his eyes, but instead looked at Matthew and gave him a smile.            “Thanks for inviting me, I hope you don’t mind that I asked Blue.”            “No that’s cool!” said Matthew, handing his menu over to her. “I’m getting a burger, it’s what I always get, so I don’t need to look at the menu if you want mine.”            Blue grinned. “I don’t need to either,” she said, leaving it on the table, “it’s seared into my brain.”            “Blue works here,” Adam explained, taking his sweater off as the restaurant’s heating started to kick in. When it was off his head he thought he saw Ronan looking away from him.            “Oh no way!” exclaimed Matthew. “That’s so cool, do you get a discount?” As Blue and Matthew discussed the pros and cons of the waiting industry, Adam took the time to study Declan, who was watching Blue as she talked, a polite expression on his face. His left ear was red, and he had a bruise along his cheekbone. That explained the darkness to Ronan’s jaw and Matthew’s comment earlier. Adam sighed, and looked down at his hands. He picked up his fork, turning it over and over.            “Parrish.” The inflection made it seem it was the second time Declan had said his name, and Adam looked up, putting the fork down. “Have you applied to any colleges yet?”            Adam tensed. He wondered if this was still a sore topic between Declan and Ronan. “No, not yet,” he replied. “I’ve looked into the process, and me and Blue were thinking of applying together.”            “You’re applying to the same colleges?” asked Matthew.            Blue blushed slightly, and Adam kicked himself for the ambiguity. “No,” he corrected, “I just mean that we’re going to write our statements and look up scholarships together, that sort of thing.”            “Deadline’s soon,” Declan observed.            “We have some time.”            “Where are you thinking of applying?”            At this Adam paused. He had his list – had rewritten it at school last week, shoving it into his bag before Ronan could see which colleges appeared at the top of the pro list – but couldn’t decide quickly enough how honest to be. “I’m not sure yet,” he said carefully. “There’s a lot to consider.”            “Oh don’t be modest,” said Blue, managing to sound irritable and proud all at once. “He’s only applying to the best universities, didn’t you say Yale and Harvard, maybe Georgetown?” Adam kicked her under the table, but it was too late. To her credit, Blue didn’t show it in her face, just flinched her body slightly and made it look like she was crossing her legs. At that point their food showed up, and sandwiches and burgers were passed around.            Once everyone was settled Declan asked, “What are you interested in majoring in, Parrish?”            “I don’t really know,” Adam replied, ignoring the burning look from Ronan. “Maybe engineering, maybe a language… I haven’t decided.”            “Engineering,” repeated Ronan. Adam looked at him then, and couldn’t decipher his expression.            “Georgetown’s no good for that, it’s full of politicians, you’d hate it,” Declan said with a smirk, one hand passing over his blue tie as if to prove his point. “You’d be better off at MIT, or Caltech.” Declan picked at Matthew’s fries with his fork.            Adam looked at his own plate and picked up his sandwich. “Yeah but MIT is a nine hour drive from here, and Caltech’s the other side of the country.” He felt Blue’s knee nudge against his under the table and realised what he’d just said.            “Haven’t you heard of planes?” Declan asked, eyes raised. “And what would you want to come back here for anyway?”            Adam managed a shrug. “Oh, I uh…”            “Hope you’re not holding out on your shitbag parents, Parrish?” Ronan’s expression had changed subtley; the anger was still there but now he held a challenge in his gaze.            Adam glared at Ronan, blushing furiously. “Nice,” he said, “but no, I’m not. I’m not stupid, I know who they are. I’m not holding out on them. Probably couldn’t even if I wanted to, seeing as I have attachment issues right?” Adam’s heart pounded in his chest and he regretted the words the minute he’d said them. Ronan had the decency to look away, surely remembering the same conversation Adam was.            There was silence for a few moments, then Blue said, “Matthew, how’s your new school?”Matthew opened his mouth to answer but Ronan cut across him looking back at Adam, “If you want to do engineering you’ll go somewhere that’s fucking good at engineering doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”            “Don’t swear,” said Matthew around a mouthful of food.            “I said I might want to study engineering,” Adam said, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “I haven’t decided yet, most people don’t decide their first year.”            “Most people aren’t you,” said Ronan. “Don’t be an idiot.”            “So Blue,” started Declan.            “There are plenty of schools that are good for engineering that aren’t the literal other side of the country,” said Adam, unable to help himself, his own research spewing out of his mouth. “Maybe I’ll apply to Virginia Tech –”            Ronan rolled his eyes, slamming his fork down. “You’re not going to Virginia shitting Tech, Jesus.”            “Don’t take the lord’s name in vain,” said Declan, but he was eating his sandwich and it sounded as though he was barely listening.            “Eat your burger, Ronan, it’s getting cold,” said Matthew.            “Burgers are literally covered in bread they’re just as good cold,” snapped Ronan.            “That’s such shit –”            “Don’t say shit,” Declan and Ronan said in unison. Matthew laughed and with it some of the tension at the table was released. Declan smiled at Matthew and stole another fry, and Ronan crossed his arms, looking away, but Adam could see the corner of his lips lifting slightly.            Adam didn’t want to think about the relief pounding through his body at the easy fight with Ronan, the way they still fitted round each other’s lives, Ronan’s quick understanding. It was something he wanted, knew he was being selfish by wanting it. Knew he was right to hold back. He picked at his food.            Declan broke the silence. “No word on Gansey?” He directed this at Adam, who shook his head. Adam looked at Blue, giving over authority to her. He wasn’t sure he could speak anyway.            Blue said, “His family put out a missing persons report, it was in the paper.”            Declan nodded. “Look, I know the stats on finding people aren’t great –” at this Adam tensed; of course he knew that, but they didn’t have to say it; Ronan was glaring into the distance – “but this is Gansey. He’s an adventurer, it’s what he does. This will be nothing. He’ll find his way back.” Platitudes, placed on the table in lieu of unless he’s dead. But Adam knew that Declan held something like respect for Gansey, so didn’t take his words as lightly as his scepticism was tempted to.            “What a helpful observation, Dec, thanks,” muttered Ronan scathingly. Adam almost instinctively reached to put a hand on Ronan’s fist, clenching and unclenching on the table, but he held back, hiding his movement by turning to face Declan.            “Thank you,” Adam said forcefully, interrupting any response Declan was about to make. “Of course we are worried, but it’s only been five days. We’re hoping he gets in touch with his parents soon.”            Declan nodded at that, and the five began eating again.            Adam just listened after that; his energy and appetite for polite conversation vanished when he noticed Ronan picking at the leather bands at his wrists. Fingers all nervous energy and pent-up… something. At the way he’d push them as far up his arm as they’d go, and back down again, grazing over the soft hairs on his arm. Adam looked up to Ronan’s face to see him staring at him.            Adam cleared his throat and put his fork down. “Thanks for inviting us to lunch Matthew,” he said.            Matthew beamed at him. “Thanks for coming.” Adam started climbing out the booth, and Matthew frowned. “Wait, aren’t you coming back to the Barns?”            Adam shook his head, not looking at Ronan. “I’m sorry,” he said, “lunch was great but I uh, I have work this afternoon.”            Blue caught on fast and nodded, standing as well. “We don’t want to intrude,” she said with a firm but charming smile, and Matthew just smiled back. There was something sad to it though, and Adam had to tear his eyes away, gut wrenching. He started walking away and let Blue finish the rest of the goodbyes.            Outside he rounded the corner of the restaurant before he put one hand on his face, breathing into it steadily. Blue’s arms appeared, pulling his body into hers, a quiet question. Adam breathed out, slow and long and tight. He grasped her shoulders and closed his eyes, speaking quietly against the side of her head. "What are we doing, Blue?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ronan didn’t understand what the point of any of this was, why they were here at all. Except that Matthew had asked.            They sat in the living room, some soft music beating gently out of speakers as Matthew talked about the songs he remembered Aurora liking. Ronan hunched himself at one end of the couch, body tense with one leg crossed over the other, as he tried to tune out Matthew and Declan’s conversation.            Ronan's elbow was propped up on the arm of the couch, holding his face in his hand, eyes averted out the window. He felt so tired, all of a sudden. His body was heavy against the couch and his eyes felt dry and wired. They twitched and he shifted, cleared his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a good night’s sleep. At that thought he remembered driving fast and careless to Adam’s last week – fuck was it only last week – words forming and re-forming in his head as he’d tried to find the words to make Adam understand. I don’t care, Adam. I only care – and arriving at Adam’s, breathless, unable to take the distance anymore. Relief shooting through his cold body that Adam had kissed him back.            Ronan closed his eyes, face tense around his frown, and rubbed his face.            Matthew switched tracks again, and the lilting folk song was one he remembered now. Ronan lifted his head up as Matthew said, “Do you remember, she used to sing me this one in the bath.” He noticed Ronan’s attention and smiled at him. “Did she sing it to you, too?”            Ronan stood up and walked out the room. Found himself in the kitchen. He opened and closed cupboard doors what am I looking for, banging doors with as much force as possible what am I fucking looking for. Ronan started pulling out food at random, setting boxes and bags and cans on the counter and taking his phone out his pocket and connecting it to the speaker and finding his favourite playlist. “Yes,” he heard himself mutter, a smirk on his face as he closed his eyes, placing his phone on the windowsill, moving his head as memories of racing and alcohol and K flickered at the back of his mind. This had been one of his favourites too. Ronan didn’t understand any of the words, it was in fucking Bulgarian or some shit, but the beat was addictive.            He started moving around the kitchen, finding pans and knives and chopping boards and had begun chopping when Declan spoke from the doorway.            “What are you making?”            “Dinner,” replied Ronan.            “We’ve just had lunch.”            “You know I’ve heard you’re supposed to eat three times a day.” Ronan poured oil into a hot pan and it sizzled, oil jumping onto his finger. He winced and sucked at it and went back to chopping onions.            Declan had moved into the room because his voice was closer when he said, “Can I help?” It was gentle, too gentle, and Ronan took in a deep ragged breath to try to get his voice steady.            “No,” he managed. Any more than that and Declan would hear the shake in his voice.            Declan’s arms appeared next to his on the counter, a second chopping board in his hand. “Ok,” said Declan, reaching for the handful of vegetables Ronan had gathered and getting started on them.            After a few minutes of peaceful work, Ronan handing things to Declan at random, Declan shoving them into the pan when asked, Ronan breathed, “Matthew.”            Declan understood. “He’s ok. He’s napping on the couch. He’s just worried about you.”            Ronan stopped at that, closed his eyes and put the knife down. “Fuck,” he said. “This was supposed to be about him –”            “This isn’t a contest, Ronan,” said Declan, gentleness creeping back into his voice. Ronan didn’t open his eyes. “I know you think it was harder on him. He was always the closest to her. But you were here… I can’t imagine…”            “Shut up,” said Ronan, and he’d meant it to come out as a bark, but the sob that wracked through his body turned it into a broken whisper, and the shaking that beat upwards moving from skin to skin had him sinking down the counter, crouching on his knees, leaning his forehead against the cupboard and gripping the back of his neck with his hands. He didn’t cry, but this was worse: shame and guilt and anger wracked over his body again and again like hot nausea, like the kind of self-loathing he hadn’t felt since – since the last time someone had died and it had been his fault.            He felt a hand on his shoulder as he rubbed his hands over his head again and again. “I’m sorry,” said Declan quietly. “I’m –”            “Shut up,” breathed Ronan, and he did, and the two stayed crouched on the kitchen floor until Ronan’s knees gave out. Blue pulled Adam into the kitchen and sat him at the table. After ascertaining that no Adam didn’t really have work today she’d dragged him to Fox Way – hard to do when he was the one driving but less hard when she adopted that Don’t Mess With Me voice that she’d found worked so well on all of them.            “This is getting stupid,” she said, “we need a team meeting.”            Adam blinked at her. “What?”            Blue started pulling things out of the cupboard at random. She’d never been great in the kitchen but she felt uncertainty and exhaustion tingling at her skin and needed to do something with her hands. A small child ran past her as she found the flour and she cursed under her breath as she spilt a little on the counter. She moved to the fridge and found butter. “A team meeting,” she said again, with a determined breath. “To assess the situation and determine some possible solutions.”            As she moved about she heard Adam’s chair scrape back slightly, but he didn’t stand, just settled in. Blue could hear the hesitation in his voice, “But we don’t have… everyone.”            “Admittedly,” Blue said, “the team is a little sparse.” Ingredients on the counter she pulled out recipe books until she found the one she wanted. “I called in backup.” She glanced at Adam to see him looking down at his hands on the table, tapping them gently. She turned back and opened the book, flicking through pages and smiling gently. Persephone had scribbled notes in soft pencil next to her favourite pies, changing numbers and occasionally writing things like better eaten at sunset or double pecans for stronger visions.            Double pecans it was.            A few minutes later Blue heard a knock at the door, a short exchange and then Henry’s bright voice in the doorway. “You called, and I have come,” he said, and she turned to smile at him as Henry shrugged off his coat, hanging it over a chair and knocking fists with Adam. He turned a chair around and sat on it backwards. “Small thing are you making a pie?”            Blue turned back to the counter, hiding a smile. “Pecan.”            “Wonderful,” Henry said. “Parrish, my man… you look awful.”            “Thanks.”            “No really, you look like you’ve spent a week either not sleeping at all or sleeping all the time. It’s almost like everyone you know nearly died a week ago.” Blue clapped flour off her hands as she consulted the recipe. She heard Henry clap his hands together. “Too soon?”            Adam cleared his throat. “I would have no problem making jokes if the situation weren’t still quite so…” he trailed off.            “Ah,” said Henry, his voice softening. “Our king is lost at sea and our jester is leaking from his ears.” Blue had called Henry, in fact had called him every day, had filled him in on Adam and Ronan. Hadn’t wanted to talk much about herself, but she knew Henry would understand. She hadn’t known him long at all but they’d held onto each other immediately just like she’d done with the others, furious and wanting.            Adam didn’t reply but Blue turned to see Henry’s hand gripping his shoulder. “Well, that’s why I’m here,” Henry said with a smile. “Pies and pontification.” By the end of the afternoon the kitchen at the Barns sported: one lasagne, two cottage pies, “special mac and cheese” (a Matthew special which was really just the box but with things like bacon and broccoli shoved in), guacamole, the beginnings of a mixed-berry jam (which Ronan wasn’t quite sure he’d dare eat as it was Opal who'd gathered the miscellaneous berries), a tray of brownies and one birthday cake.            “Who’s birthday is it?” asked Matthew, face covered under a soft layer of flour as he chased Opal round the kitchen.            Mine, thought Ronan glumly. “Opal’s,” he announced, stepping back and considering his creation. They weren’t good cooks any of them, and the cake slumped slightly on one side, but it had enough cream on top to balance it out, and Ronan took in a breath so deep it made it all the way to his lungs finally finally finally finally            “So,” said Declan, rinsing his hands in the sink, “do you feel better?” “What’s the point,” Adam said for the third time, tapping his finger against pie crust.            Blue looked at him sharply. “You’ve said that already.”            “Three times,” Henry said around a mouthful of pie.            Adam sighed in frustration. He pushed his plate away. “Because you haven’t adequately convinced me.”            Blue stood up and started taking plates to the sink but Henry took them from her, nudging her back into her seat. He ran water into the bowl and shoved the plates in, leaning back against the counter and scratching at his cheek. “The point,” he began slowly, “might not be about him at all. But for you. For us.” Henry turned back as the bowl was close to tipping over with water and turned the tap off, rubbing lazily at plates with a sponge.            Blue looked at Adam. “I understand,” she said. “I do. But I think this is hurting all of us.”            Adam looked frustrated. “It’s none of your business,” he said, eyes flicking from the table up to Blue’s eyes and back to the wall.            “You know we don’t work like that,” Blue said softly. She waited a minute to see if he’d respond, looked at Henry for back up. Henry smiled and gave her a soapy thumbs up. “I think if we’re going to get through any of this – we’re going to need to do it together. That’s how we’ve always done it, Adam. That’s how we survive this.”            Adam glared at the wall. “You want me to talk to him,” he said again, for the third time.            Blue put a hand on his arm. “Adam, we need him.”            Henry put the last of the plates on the drying rack and turned round, drying his hands on a towel. “The way I see it,” he said, moving to rejoin them at the table, “is we have a few problems here. Gansey is missing.” He said Gansey is missing like The contractor is coming today or I left my wallet at home. Like it was just a momentary inconvenience, and the strength from that made Blue sit up. It was the first time anyone had said it and she hadn’t heard Gansey is probably dead or He left us he left us he left us. “Adam is heartbroken –”            “I’m not h–”            “– and in denial about his overflowing feelings, and his very real trauma from almost strangling the man he loves.” Henry talked as if he was describing the plot of an adventure novel, and it was so ridiculous Blue giggled. She clapped a hand over her mouth as Adam gave her a sharp look.            “Sorry,” she whispered through her fingers, giggling quietly, but Adam smiled at her thinly, and held his head in his hands as a blush and a small laugh crept up his neck.            “Meanwhile Ronan might be dying –”            At this whole laughs wracked through Adam’s body and Blue stopped giggling abruptly. Adam sat back in his chair, arms clutched painfully around his chest, air escaping his body over and over again, and Blue and Henry looked at each other. She tried smiling at Adam, but it was like smiling at a car crash. They walked through the Barns. Ronan breathed in deeply for the second time that day and leaned close to his younger brother, one arm thrown over his shoulder and leaned his head briefly against Matthew’s before pulling away entirely, shoving him away. Matthew stumbled and grinned.            Declan was allowing Opal to pull him around, showing him things her and Ronan had done to the farm – which wasn’t much, but it was a pile of small stones Opal had found, upturned earth where she wanted to plant gem stones, a barn door Ronan had torn from its hinges.            “When are you heading back?” Ronan asked.            Matthew shrugged. “When Declan says so. After dinner maybe.”            Ronan nodded at that, and they walked on in silence. “Matthew,” he started. Light was spilling over the hill as their breaths became shorter, as tall limbs hunched over legs, as boots scraped through grass from the effort of folding their bodies uphill, as yellow turned to orange turned to red. They reached the top of the hill and turned, Matthew collapsing bodily onto wet grass, Opal folding herself into his lap. Declan was stood further away, hands in his pockets, head tilted towards the sunset.            Matthew turned his head. “What?”            “I’m sorry,” said Ronan. The sky was red red red. He could feel Declan watching them, but he was caught on the sky. Streaks of grey cloud floated overhead and spilled through the Barns as everything was coated in pinks and blues and as everything smelled like wet grass and autumn air and dying leaves and as everything sounded like the thump thump thump in Ronan’s ear and as he breathed in deeply, once, back out. I’m sorry.            Opal was clutching onto Ronan’s leg and he patted her hair awkwardly. Matthew stood too and plastered himself to Ronan’s side. Ronan turned to look at Declan and caught his eye. I’m sorry.            Declan walked over to him. They looked at each other. Declan put one hand on Ronan’s shoulder and looked back across the hills, across the sky, across everything. “Don’t,” said Matthew. “This is all of us.” Adam was clutching his head in his hands, aware of Blue’s hand on his shoulder and Henry’s body crouching near his chair. He took in a long, ragged breath, feeling the effort of it rippling through his body. He wanted            “Ok,” he said.