Chapter Text
Adam is woken up twenty minutes before 3am.
The first thing he does is convince himself that he somehow managed to sleep past his alarm and is late for one of his jobs. This is quickly soothed when he realizes the bed he’s sleeping in isn’t his, and the room he’s currently in belongs to the motel he, Maura, and Calla checked in earlier today. Or, well, yesterday.
He smacks his lips a few times, feeling his mouth dry because of the shitty motel’s shitty heating system.
Maura offers him a glass of water, which he chugs in three grateful gulps.
“I told you to wake him up earlier,” Maura speak over Adam’s head, directly to Calla.
“Kid deserved to get some rest,” Calla says, which does not sit well with Adam. He doesn’t want these women looking straight into his exhaustion and diagnosing it.
“Thank you for the water,” Adam says instead and puts the glass on the bedside table.
The room they’re staying in is small and dingy, with a double bed covered in a moth-eaten sheet, and a single pressed up against the opposite corner. Maura and Calla had told the front-desk lady that they were Adam’s moms, and then proceeded to pay extra to get this specific room, even when it was the only room in the motel that had no window.
Something about leylines and energy and one of Maura’s premonitions. Adam didn’t really understand it at the time, but he feels it now.
It feels powerful. It feels like the very floor of humming with possibility, like they managed to plug themselves straight into the mycelium network sitting beneath their feet.
Adam twists up his nose when he realizes he organically thought of mycelium and compared it to a leyline. The Adam of last year would have never thought of mycelium and leylines. The Adam of last year didn’t have a Blue and a Gansey speaking in his ear at all times.
Maura and Calla are efficient as they set up a bowl and pour juice in it. Adam takes a sniff and wrinkles his nose.
“Prune,” Calla chuckles, dipping her finger in the liquid and the licking it dry. “Tastes better than it smells.”
Somehow, her words do not make him want to try it.
They sit in a circle on the floor, with the bowl in front of Adam and all of their hands clasped together. Apparently, there’s something about the witching hour that makes scrying especially accessible. And dangerous.
Adam looks down at the bowl of prune juice and he sinks head first.
There are no gentle waves. One moment, he’s sitting in a motel room, the next, he’s pure energy, thrumming on the edges of a leyline, pulsing in time with the beating heart of the Earth.
He feels it like a thread, running through his fingers and extending out into the unknow.
He tugs. It tugs back. He follows. It escapes. He runs. It runs from him.
He stops. He lets it come closer, he allows himself to open up.
It’s a slow process, and Adam has never been patient. Still. He sits, and he waits.
The threads become thicker, it takes shape in front of his eyes.
Choppy bangs. Wireframe glasses. A roman nose. Aglionby uniform.
Blonde curls.
Blue eyes.
There’s blood in his hands.
There’s the sound of crying. A small child crying. For him. Because of him. He can’t tell.
There’s too much, but there’s not enough at the same time.
There’s him, and Blue, and Gansey, and Ronan, and Noah, and Matthew, and they’re all connected somehow. They’re all important, and they’re all so painfully mundane.
But no. Not all of them.
Some of them are mundane.
Others are—
Cabeswater. A bridge. A little girl. The darkness. Ronan.
Ronan. Ronan. Ronan.
He’s running, and he’s being chased, and Adam can only stare, frozen in place. A ghost, only able to watch as his best friend is hunted. He tries to scream, but voices are for flesh and blood, and he’s nothing but feeling now.
Ronan stops at the bridge.
Ronan bleeds.
Ronan screams.
Ronan jumps off and Adam—
Adam wakes up screaming.
“Ronan!” He gasps for breath, reaching out for his keys and falling flat on his face.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to explain much, not when they were connected not even a second ago.
Maura and Calla help him up and into the car. They promise they’ll find their way back to Henrietta and send him off with only a sharp warning for him to figure it out before they manage to do it.
Adam starts his car and only manages to weakly nod before he’s out in the highway.
+++
300 Fox Way is weirdly quiet when they arrive, which makes Adam even more suspicious.
It’s only when he steps further into the house that his functioning ear picks up the very distinct noises crying. Adam rushes into Persephone’s old bedroom, terrified of what he might find, only to be surprised by three very frustrated adults, a screaming raven, and not one, but two crying children.
“What in the fuck,” he says, quiet but emphatically.
Three pairs of eyes turn to him, all wearing different looks of desperation.
Declan is pacing back and forth in the limited free space of the bedroom, bouncing a sobbing Matthew and trying to calm him. Ronan is sitting on the bed, holding a little girl to his side and rubbing her back as she too wails. She’s dressed in a truly gigantic fisherman sweater and matching beanie. Her feet look malformed and Adam worries that she was somehow injured, before realizing they’re hooves.
A dream then.
“What happened?” Adam tries to step closer, but somehow his proximity only manages to make both kids cry harder.
“Ronan had the brilliant idea to bring back a kid, which made Matthew extremely jealous,” Blue explains, trying to hold Chainsaw’s beak closed and failing miserably. “And Chainsaw likes to feel included when he cries, which doesn’t help,” she adds, with a glare directed at the bird.
“Why did you—?” He frowns at Ronan.
“Accident,” he responds curtly. “Long story, no time for it now. Do you think I can give little kids sleeping pills? Or is that questionable parenting?”
“Ronan,” Declan sternly says, but it sounds less like a name and more like a warning.
“Joking, joking, D. You have no sense of humor,” Ronan rolls his eyes.
The little girl untucks her face from his shirt and glances towards Declan and Matthew, reaching out and mumbling little words in Latin.
“What’s she saying?” Blue asks.
“Little brother,” Ronan translates, pulling her towards him. “She seems to really like Matthew, but he— well, he—,” and he gestures to the inconsolable toddler, crying in his dad’s arms like the world is collapsing under his feet.
“He was meant to be an only child, got it,” Blue nods, at last managing to wrangle Chainsaw into screaming a little bit less. “What are you gonna do with her?”
“I don’t know,” Ronan sighs, “can’t think with all this crying.”
Adam understands the feeling. His head is starting to pulse with a headache, and he only has one functional ear.
“Okay, okay,” Blue commands the room. “You, get Matthew out of here before he implodes with jealousy,” she points at Declan. “You two, take her somewhere else before their combined screaming wakes up the rest of the house,” she points at him and Ronan.
“What about you?” Adam asks.
“I call dibs on dealing with the easiest one,” she holds up Chainsaw like a sack of potatoes and then bolts out of the door. As soon as the raven is removed from the bedroom, she stops screaming.
Adam, who is still stuck in a room with two crying kids, is very jealous.
“What will you do with her?” Adam asks, loud enough to be heard above the noise.
Ronan looks to his brother for guidance, but Declan just shrugs incredulously.
“Don’t look at me.”
“Oh, c’mon, D. You have literally a million plans for everything and anything. Can’t you spare a single one for this? Where’s all your big brother energy?”
“You just told me to drop it,” Declan defends himself with an offended tilt to his eyebrows.
Ronan mutters a curse under his breath and then says, “well, can you start listening to me when the sun has come up and my ears aren’t about to fall off?”
Declan rolls his eyes, running a hand up and down Matthew’s back and trying to soothe him.
“What about Cabeswater?” Adam suggests, shoving a finger in his functional ear and sighing in relief. He can still hear the cries, but they’re much better now that they’re muffled.
Ronan looks down at the girl, asks her something that Adam can’t hear, and then nods.
“She agrees,” he says. Or, at least, Adam thinks he says. “We can use the BMW,” Ronan suggests, scooping her up by the armpits so they can be eye level with each other. The movement seems to distract her enough so that she stops crying.
Adam unplugs his ear.
“Should I put her on Matthew’s car seat? Will she fit?” Ronan asks his brother.
Declan just shrugs, still mostly focused on comforting Matthew.
“I don’t know. How old is she?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“You dreamt her.”
“You read every single parenting book known to man. Can’t you tell how old a kid is just by looking at them?”
“I don’t think you know what parenting books are,” Declan rolls his eyes and then looks in Adam’s direction.
“Why are you looking at me? You’re the ones with a kid,” his expression pinches.
“God, that’s weird to hear from you,” Declan mutters under his breath.
Adam is inclined to agree. It’s very weird to be saying things like this out loud. The Lynches have been a secret for so long that it’s unfamiliar to be able to put everything out in the open. Awkward, and fumbling, and only slightly forbidden.
“Yeah, yeah, we can have a big fucking meeting about it later,” Ronan brushes off the weirdness. “But for now I would love to stop all this screaming,” he settles the girl on his hips and then gestures for Adam to follow.
Because Adam is still a little bit confused and very overwhelmed, he just obeys.
Ronan puts the girl on the backseat of the BMW and instructs her to duck down and keep hidden, and then tells Adam to take a seat too.
“Remind me to stop at a CVS on the way back,” Ronan grunts, starting the car.
“It’s too early for the pharmacies to be open,” Adam points out, glancing at the rear-view mirror and watching the girl fiddle with her own hands and look around like a scared animal.
“Remind me anyway.”
“Sure,” he shrugs. “What for?”
Ronan makes a clicking noise and very pointedly steps on the gas. He looks pissed.
“Damage control.”
He doesn’t specify further, but Adam can make an educated guess.
+++
Chainsaw stops screaming once she’s taken away from Matthew’s side, which Blue considers a blessing, because it was either going to be that, or she’d have to make fried chicken out of raven.
They settle in Blue’s bedroom together and Chainsaw immediately takes to exploring, hopping all over the wooden floor and picking random scraps of fabric with her beak. She seems to be searching for something, but Blue’s too tired to stop her, so she just lets it happen.
She’s exhausted, and her ears still ring a little bit from all the crying, but at least she wasn’t woken up by all the ruckus. Blue never usually suffers from insomnia, but tonight has been difficult.
Without really meaning to, her hands gravitate towards the drawings Matthew gave her yesterday. She runs her fingers over the details made in colored pencil. It’s both so very clearly made by a toddler and not.
Chainsaw flies up on her bed, leaning over to peek at the drawings and then pecking at them once. Blue huffs and pushes her away, trying to avoid any tears in the paper.
There’s something about this drawing. Something about Matthew.
It was harder to notice when she was only seeing him for a few hours every weekend, but it’s unmistakable now that they live together. There’s a part of her that wants to ask Ronen and Declan about it. After all, they’ve been with Matthew since before he was born. They’re his parents, for god’s sake, they must know something.
But then Blue thinks about Maura. About asking for answers for her own strangeness, and receiving nothing but ominous silences in response.
Chainsaw quickly grows bored of the drawings and flies away again, this time landing on Blue’s dresser and shoving her beak into her jewelry. Blue doesn’t really have anything of value, so she doesn’t worry. For some reason, Chainsaw only ever steals gold. And food.
Almost imperceptibly, the house gets quieter, so Blue assumes that Ronan and Adam have left with the dream girl. She cracks her door open, listening in for any loud voices or awake people.
Once she makes sure the coast is clear, she tip-toes to the phone room, leaving Chainsaw behind in her bedroom.
It’s messy as always, and she picks the chair closest to the window, making herself comfortable with a blanket on her lap. Both drawings get deposited to the side as she dials Gansey’s number and presses the phone to her ear. Fortunately, and because Gansey is a horrible insomniac, she only has a wait a short while before he answers.
“Hello?” Gansey’s voice is always so comforting, even when Blue does her best not to think so. There’s just something about the baritone of it, or the way he enunciates his words like every single one matters, that just gets to her.
“Is this Congress?” She asks out of habit.
“Actually, you dialed wrong, this is Pizza Hut.”
Blue snorts and then covers it up with her hands. There are snowflakes stuck to the window and she can trace their unique design with her eyes.
“Well, then I have a very important question for Pizza Hut.”
“Yes, we deliver this late, but only if you tip very handsomely.”
“Give me ten minutes and I can get my hands on a credit card capable of doing that,” she thumbs the edges of the first drawing. The one that’s supposed to be her.
“Ah, so you’ll take Lynch money, but not mine,” Gansey tries to pose it as a joke, but Blue can hear the affront in his tone.
“I’ll consider it a Christmas bonus.”
“It’s January.”
“A late Christmas bonus then,” Blue picks up the drawing and puts it under whatever moonlight shines through the window. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“You’ve known Matthew since he was a baby, right?”
“I have,” Gansey’s tone shifts, every other feeling replaced with worry. With almost parental-like devotion.
“Was he ever—,” Blue struggles to think of the correct way to voice this. “Was he ever weird?”
“Weird?”
“Weird,” she nods, knowing she’s not explaining this very well. “But like, properly weird. Unnaturally weird. Weird like being a supernatural battery, or like being a psychic, or like pulling things out of your dreams.”
Gansey is silent for a long minute. Blue watches another snowflake land on the window.
“To be honest, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be able to tell even if he was. I’ve never been around many kids before, so I don’t know what’s normal. Before him, I honestly thought most things about kids were weird.”
“Most things about kids are weird,” Blue agrees. “Like, what is up with milk teeth? Why would we have starter teeth when our actual teeth are already there since the beginning? Sounds inefficient.”
“Yeah,” Gansey chuckles, “it does. But that’s not what you mean, is it?”
Once upon a time, Blue might have thought that being different was bad. When she was small, and innocent, and all the kids in her school made fun of her for being the child of a psychic. And then, she had aged and learned that different wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. And then, she aged even more and learned that different wasn’t just good or bad. It was dangerous.
“I don’t think Matthew is normal,” she closes her eyes and pictures the toddler’s sunny face. His chubby cheeks, his golden hair, his long eyelashes. His ability to wake up Ronan when no one else could, his strange behavior, his ominous drawings.
Blue holds two of them now, studying the violent lines that were painted on her face. This feels like a warning somehow, but she doesn’t think she’s smart enough to figure it out before it’s too late.
“Why do you say that?”
“I have so many little cousins, such a big family. Some of them are psychic too, inherited it from their moms. I know how to recognize strangeness when it’s familiar, but this is different. This feels—,” Blue clutches the paper with so much force that she nearly rips it. “This feels wrong.”
“He’s just a kid, Jane.”
“He is,” she agrees. “But I think he might be more too. He— he gave me these drawings yesterday. I think they might be something bad.”
Gansey is silent for another long minute. Blue ran out of snowflakes to watch.
“What drawings?”
“It’s of me, of something happening to me, and something happening to Noah. I think it might be a warning.”
“You think he might be psychic?”
Blue thinks back to Matthew’s strange behavior and to what she’s seen of her younger cousins and their premonitions.
“No, I don’t think he’s psychic. I think he’s something else. I think he’s something else like I am something else.”
“You—,” Gansey’s voice is tense, she can feel his desperation even with the distance that separates them. “You think this is because of his father?”
No. Blue doesn’t think this is because of Matthew’s father. She can’t, not when Declan is the most normal man she’s ever met. But she can’t exactly tell Gansey that without revealing more than she knows she should.
It’s fucking hard, to have to keep so many secrets from the man she loves.
Like Gansey’s death. Like Gansey’s kiss. Like Gansey’s love. Knowing will only make the situation worse.
“I think this is because of Ronan. There’s only one Greywaren, remember? He said it himself. Only one Greywaren means only one of Matthew.”
Gansey hums, deep in thought.
“Makes sense, I guess. But what about Matthew’s father? Couldn’t this have come from him too? We don’t know the guy.”
“It didn’t come from him,” Blue huffs and only notices her mistake when Gansey goes very quiet. Not normal quiet. Bad quiet. “Gansey?”
“You know,” his voice is indecipherable. Angry, and betrayed, and disappointed, and resigned. Heartbroken, in a strange way. “He told you, didn’t he?”
“I—,” Blue doesn’t know how to answer. She didn’t prepare any lies for this.
“Of course he did,” he bites and she can hear the turmoil in every note of his voice. “Of fucking course he did. Why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t fucking he?”
“Gansey—,” Blue tries, but it’s no use.
“Don’t,” she’s never heard him sound like that. No longer a king, no longer a friend, but a wounded animal. “Fucking don’t. I don’t wanna hear it. I don’t wanna hear any of it.”
“Gansey—”
“Goodbye, Jane,” he hangs up.
It’s such a sudden change, to go from hearing Gansey’s comforting voice to the steady beeping of the disconnected line. She feels cold. She feels damned. She feels as sinful as the secret she’s harboring.
+++
Piper has terrible taste in tea.
Normally, Henry is used to stomaching mediocre food for the sake of making a good impression, but this is a bit too extreme. He only manages a single sip of her unholy leaf concoction before he feels his tongue dissolve in his mouth and is forced to stop.
Fortunately, and because he was raised by the iron hand of Seondeok, he manages to keep the grimace away from his face. Piper Greenmantle does not look like the kind of woman that would be pleased with having her taste in tea questioned.
Henry thinks that having as much money as she does could have done something to teach her how to balance flavors better, but the cup in his hands is neither complex, nor comforting. He sneaks a glance at the metal tin she pulled the mixture from and catches the words ‘enlighten’, ‘inner-strength’, and ‘pilates’ all together. He puts his cup down.
He doesn’t want to be rude when Piper made a point to invite him into her home (aka, her rented cottage), and even deigned to bring a tray with biscuits for him to try. If this was any other meeting, Henry might have worried about poison, but he knows Piper enough to know that covert kills are not her style. If he’s gonna get killed today, it’ll be graphic, enthusiastic, and much more exciting than a simple poisoning.
“Oh, you should try this one,” she pushes a small tin towards him, filled to the brim with star-shaped candy. “They’re called Konpeitō and it is said that the Japanese only eat them during celebrations.”
Henry picks four stars, taking care to choose only the green ones, and pops them in his mouth. They’re sugary sweet and crunch satisfyingly under his teeth. He politely keeps from commenting on how wrong she is, or in pointing out that he was born and raised in Hong Kong, and that going to Japan to him was like travelling between states.
“They’re delicious,” he compliments and she preens.
Piper looks well put together, her curves squeezed into tight yoga clothes and her blonde hair tied in a high ponytail. If Henry didn’t know any better, he would have thought her defenseless.
She takes a big sip of her tea and makes a noise like she just tasted something exquisite. Who knows, maybe she has. Some white people have no idea what good tea should taste like.
“So,” Piper begins, putting her cup of tea down on the table and pinning him with her eyes. She’s intense, Henry will give her that. Not as intense as his mother. But close. “What does Seondeok’s son want with me?”
“First of all,” Henry leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees and trying to project the appropriate amount of reverence. “I want to offer my condolences about your husband.”
Piper tilts her head to the side, like a lizard trying to detect sound better, and then smiles.
“Yes, I suppose condolences are due,” she sighs. “I’m still getting used to being a widow. So foreign. I always thought that when the time came, it would be my own hand,” and she sounds almost disappointed by it.
Henry doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just keeps quiet.
“But,” she recovers quickly, “Colin brought it on himself, I suppose. He never listened to me. If he had listened to me, he would be alive by now. I told him that Lynch boy was not worth it.”
Henry only manages to keep the shock from his face because he’s been very well trained.
“Lynch boy? You mean Declan? What does he have to do with anything?” He plays the innocent card well. His mother always said there was something about his eyes, or his cheeks, or the soft curve of his mouth. People were always inclined to think him nicer and kinder than he ever bothered to be.
“Of course,” Piper huffs, “who else? Colin killed Niall, and then was killed in return. It only makes sense, I suppose. The circle of life, or whatever,” she snatches her teacup and downs it like it’s a shot of vodka and not hot leafy juice.
“Ah,” Henry rubs the back of his neck, feigning discomfort. “Sorry, it’s just that I never expected that from Declan, you know? We went to school together, it’s hard to believe he’d be able to do something like that.”
“Why not?” Piper blinks confusedly at him. “Colin told me he was raised in this business, no? A few years of Fairy Markets are enough to make anyone ruthless, it’s only natural,” she shrugs, like they’re discussing the price of groceries and not her husband’s killer.
“Sorry,” Henry chuckles, injecting as much awkwardness into his voice as he can. “It’s just weird to think about it. I’m still new to this whole thing.”
“Innocent you say?” She leans forward and Henry tries to keep his eyes on her face and not her cleavage. It’s not hard when her smile feels like it’s wrapping around his neck like a wire. “I don’t believe you, Henry Cheng. No son of Seondeok could ever be innocent.”
“I never said innocent,” Henry switches tactics, just a slightly. “I said I wasn’t used to killing. It’s called having morals.”
Piper barks out a laugh and leans back again. Henry feels the pressure around his neck ease.
“How noble, Mr. Cheng. I wonder how long you’ll keep those morals intact.”
Not much longer, considering he helped Declan kill Greenmantle. But it’s not like Piper needs to know that. Her body language is all relaxed and her eyes are interested in Henry, not as a threat, but as a curiosity. As a possible extension of Seondeok and, therefore, an ally.
“Tell you what,” Piper claps her hands with too much enthusiasm for such a serious conversation. “I’ll be your first.”
“My what?” Henry squeaks, and this time, he doesn’t have to feign his discomfort.
“Your first taste of loose morals,” she grins at him, all teeth. Henry feels vaguely nauseous. Maybe that tea was poisoned after all. “I found something recently, something I need your mother’s help with.”
“Something?”
Piper’s smile turns glassy and Henry feels the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
There’s something behind him. There’s something behind him. There’s something behind him.
His knuckles turn white as he grips the couch, battling his primal need to look back, and the voice is his head that insists that he absolutely should not. It sounds vaguely like his mother.
“You can feel it, can’t you? My very own demon,” Piper sounds delighted by it. She claps and throws her head back with a laugh. “Oh, it’ll sell for billions! Trillions! And it’ll make me infamous forever. It’s everything Colin could never give me.”
Henry grits his teeth until his jaw aches. He’s sweating cold and his throat is dry. He doesn’t know what to say, but he knows he has to say something.
This is important. This is when he needs to be strong.
Strong like his mother is strong.
“Demon?” He manages to croak.
“Hm, yes,” Piper sounds almost drunk. Drunk on power, on adrenaline, on stupidity. “I found it deep in the bowels of the earth. It told me to free it and gave me a wish in return. Do you know what I asked for, Henry Chang?”
Henry can guess, but he still asks, “what?”
“Revenge,” the word drips from her lips like poison. Turns out, Henry never had to worry about the tea, Piper’s voice was always more than enough to kill him.
“You’ll kill Declan,” it’s not a question, but it still gives Piper pause.
“No,” she brushes off his idea like it’s ridiculous. “What use would I have for a corpse? I’ll tell you, because the answer is none. I don’t want him dead, that would be stupid. No, I want that boy miserable. I want him heartbroken. I want him to know what it’s like to lose everything. I want him begging at my feet for me to put a bullet in his head,” Piper mimes shooting herself and then cackles madly. “Which is much more reasonable, don’t you think so? I think so.”
Henry can’t answer. He’s using all of his energy to keep from vomiting on her nice rug.
Piper seems to notice his discomfort, because she waves a hand and the pressure on the back of his neck releases. Henry gasps in relief, gulping down air like he had been drowning for minutes on end. Now that he can feel nothing there, he chances a glance back, finding the sitting room just as empty as it had been when he arrived. It’s only him and Piper in this cottage. Except it’s not. It never really was.
His bottom lip trembles and Henry bites it to keep himself in check, before turning back to Piper with his best mask of awe and healthy fear. Like she’s a goddess and he’s just so happy to be basking in her presence.
Henry doesn’t believe in God. But Piper doesn’t need to know that.
“That was incredible!” He forces himself to be as cheerful as he can. “You found it here in Henrietta? Oh man, that’s so cool! I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was absolutely terrifying, but so cool too. You can control it?”
Piper preens with the compliments, puffing up like a peacock.
“Of course I control it,” she tuts. “I can make it do whatever I want. I can make it hunt down whoever I want.”
Whoever she wants, Piper says, and Henry is smart enough to put two and two together. She doesn’t want to kill Declan. She wants to drive him to the point where he would want to kill himself.
Henry thinks of Ronan, the boy he’s known since he was fourteen-years-old, forever tagging along with Gansey. They were never friends, him and Ronan, but they were still classmates. They still took Latin together, and they still had to survive Ms. Hammer’s horrible history lessons, and they still ate shitty cafeteria food sitting side by side.
Helping orchestrate Greenmantle’s death is one thing, but letting Piper kill Ronan is an entirely different beast.
Plus, that’s not even considering Matthew too.
Matthew, who’s so very small and so innocent. Matthew, who’s around the same age as his oldest niece. Henry might have compromised his morals years ago, when he sat with his mother and signed his name to this stupid business, but he doesn’t know if he can let himself slip that far yet.
“It’s quite the cruel move,” Henry tries to negotiate, even when he knows that there’s no reasoning with madness.
“Thank you,” Piper says, with a sick little cheer to her voice. “I was aiming for cruelty. It’s really quite lucky that that boy has so much to lose. This would have never worked with his father. Niall was a bitch to deal with.”
Henry nods, because Niall was a bitch to deal with. At least, that’s what he always heard from his mother.
“And you’re telling me all of this as a test, aren’t you?” He can’t help but laugh a little bit, because of course he always finds himself in the worst situations possible. He couldn’t have had an easy first assignment. No, he had to shove himself right in the middle of a moral quandary first try.
“Of course. You were friends, weren’t you? I need to test loyalty somehow. Can’t have another Mr. Gray situation.”
“I wouldn’t say friends,” Henry rolls his eyes, because they really weren’t friends. Not him, not Ronan, not Gansey, and especially not Declan. This should be an easy choice really. This should be no harder than looking away as the lion catches the zebra on a nature documentary.
But it is.
And Henry hates that it is.
Not enough to make him actually do something about it, but at least enough to make him feel really guilty about crossing his arms and letting himself become more of his mother’s pawn.
+++
There’s an uncut tag brushing against Gansey’s neck and if he doesn’t do something about it soon, he might commit a violent crime.
He’s tried to fold it so it won’t bother him so much, but it’s no use. He should take the shirt off and cut it, but he’s been working on the Henrietta model for a few hours now and hit a good flow. If he stands up now, he’ll lose the momentum. So, he tries to ignore it and adds more glue to a piece of carboard that is supposed to make up the Walmart that Adam likes going to.
It's a cold evening and the sun has set a few minutes ago, bathing Monmouth in almost darkness. Gansey hates this twilight, it makes everything blurry, even when he has his glasses on.
He puts the cardboard in place and holds it for a few seconds as it dries.
He hasn’t talked to any of his friends in a few days now. There was apparently a commotion with one of Ronan’s dreams on the day Blue called him, but Gansey didn’t bother to call back and check.
This isn’t normal for him. This isn’t how he’s supposed to behave.
He is Richard Campbell Gansey III, he isn’t made to back down when pushed away. He’s meant to be stubborn, and caring, and he’s supposed to help those he loves. But stubbornness hasn’t gotten him anywhere in a while now.
Adam wants nothing to do with him. Ronan doesn’t trust him anymore. Blue is pulling away. Noah is just going. Gansey doesn’t know which friend he should try to hold on to. Which one he should try to save.
Some of the glue dries on his fingers and he peels it off in satisfying strips.
Monmouth is so quiet since Ronan moved out. Gansey’s life is so quiet now.
It’s funny. He was always the one running away before. He left his home to search for Glendower and never even remembered to miss his family. He left Malory, even after he found himself becoming friends with the old man, and he didn’t even say goodbye.
He never really said goodbye.
Gansey hates goodbyes, but he never had a problem being the one to say them.
He just hates when other people are the ones saying it to him.
The wind howls outside and Gansey’s neck itches with the annoying tag. He tries to reach back and grasp it, but it doesn’t help. Nothing ever helps.
How pathetic. He’s supposed to make things better, not just for himself, but for everyone else too, and he can’t even handle a clothing tag anymore.
The sound of a lock clicking and a cold gust of wind lets Gansey know that the front door was just opened.
He jumps up in surprise, reels back to see who it could be. Because Gansey lives alone now. No one ever visits anymore.
“Why are the lights all off? I can’t see shit,” Blue’s voice.
Gansey hasn’t heard from her in days now. Not since their last phone-call.
“Got distracted,” he shrugs and she turns on the lights, bathing the apartment in warmth. She’s dressed in a winter coat that’s much too big for her, but the colorful patches stitched on random spots let him know that it’s her coat anyway.
She takes off her winter shoes by the door, putting them in their designated tray to at least try and keep the snow contained. Her socks are so purple that Gansey is momentarily reminded of Barney the Dinosaur.
“Were you crafting in the dark? You’re gonna fuck up your eyes even more,” she says.
“That’s a myth, actually,” Gansey readjusts his glasses.
“Is it? I’m gonna ask my mom for compensation then. She used to tell me off for crafting in the dark all the time.”
Gansey huffs out a small laugh, somehow amused by the image of a tiny Blue, glueing sequins to her jeans in the middle of the night.
“Who dropped you off?” He asks.
She scoffs, sounding a little bit offended. “No one, I biked.”
“In the snow?” That doesn’t sound safe.
“Yeah, rich boy, not all of us have cars available to us at all times. I’m used to it.”
Gansey makes a face, because she might be used to it, but it doesn’t mean that he needs to like it.
“Don’t,” she warns.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face said enough.”
Gansey makes a point to relax all of his facial muscles at once.
“Better?”
“Sure,” she snorts. “We haven’t heard from you in a while,” she comments off-handedly, crouching in front of the local pharmacy and running her fingers over the cardboard.
“I’ve been busy.”
“I can see that,” she gestures to the model. “It’s much better than last time I saw it.”
Gansey rubs the back of his neck, trying to get rid of that stupid tag once more.
“I like working on it. It’s relaxing,” unlike this horrible-annoying-stupid-awful fucking tag. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Sure,” she stands up again. Her oversized coat makes her look even smaller and Gansey has to choke the impulse to scoop her up in his arms, just to see if she fits.
Instead, he hands her a pair of scissors and turns his back to her.
“Help me cut this tag. It’s been driving me insane.”
“What? Can’t you do that yourself?” She scoffs, but still yanks him back by the collar so she’s eye-level with the tag. “Crouch down a bit. You’re too tall. It’s offensive.”
“I’m not tall, you’re just short,” Gansey says, because he really isn’t that tall. In fact, he’s perfectly average heighted.
Blue snorts and Gansey can feel her breath hit the back of his neck. It’s warm and smells vaguely sweet, like she’s just been munching of some candy.
“No. You’re tall,” she insists, snipping the tag with a decisive sound. “You’re all tall. I swear to God, I just had to become friends with the worst group of people for that. Calla tried to comfort me saying that it’s just because I’m a girl, but Ronan said he had always been tall, even before transitioning.”
“He was always pretty tall,” Gansey reminisces, thinking back to his first day at Aglionby.
Of running his eyes over the crowd of people and finding himself inexplicably drawn to the boy standing to the side, clinging to an older boy’s sleeve like it was a security blanket. He had been tall back then too, both Ronan and Declan, but his face was different.
Most people just chalked it off to a man growing out of his baby fat, or the difference between being freshly fourteen versus twenty. But Gansey knows better now. Gansey knows Ronan’s changes were hard won. That they came in the shape of sharp needles and little bottles of clear liquid stashed in a cabinet in the bathroom-laundry room-kitchen.
Gansey swallows dry, rubbing the back of his neck and relishing in the relief of not having that tag rubbing up against his skin anymore.
“His parents were pretty tall too,” he comments. “I guess it makes sense he ended up tall, whether he be a man or a woman.”
Blue hands him the scissors back. She’s looking away and it feels on purpose.
“Matthew will probably be tall too,” Gansey’s voice trembles. He tries to catch her eyes, but she won’t budge. “Given his parents…”
“Parent, you mean,” she says, her voice sharp. “Since you don’t know who Matthew’s father is.”
“You tell me,” Gansey sighs. He’s not as angry as he was a few days ago. There’s no more space for anger in him. Now, all that’s left is a quiet disappointment and the bitterness of feeling betrayed. Feeling left behind. “Since you know who he is.”
Blue’s expression turns so complicated then, so much anguish and so much sadness trapped in the downturned curve of her lips.
“It’s not my secret to tell.”
Gansey laughs bitterly. “Yeah, I know. Noah told me the same thing when I asked him. It seems everyone is always so good about being in the loop. Except for me.”
“We’re not hiding things from you because we want to push you away,” Blue’s voice trembles, and Gansey thinks she might be talking about something else.
“It doesn’t matter what you want to do. What you are doing is pushing me away. How do you think this feels for me? How do you think it feels when all of my friends are in on the same secret and I’m the only one they don’t trust enough to share?” Gansey’s starting to grow agitated. He’s starting to grow angry.
“It’s not about trust,” Blue insists, her voice turning harsher. Colder. “Some things are best kept secret. Some things are not meant for you to know.”
“Like the identity of my own nephew’s father?” Gansey snaps.
“Like a lot of things!” Blue throws her hands out. This isn’t a fight yet, but they’re getting dangerously close to it. “Why do you even have to know it? It’s not like we don’t love you. You know we love you. A secret or two don’t change that.”
Gansey thinks back to three years ago. To sitting in this same room, holding a slice of cold pizza in his hands and being told that he might become an uncle. About the weight of a newborn in his arms for the first time. About holding his dying best friend and frantically dialing 9-1-1. About being presented a baby raven and told that all the impossible things in the universe have always been right next to him.
“I don’t want to just be loved, Blue,” he says her name. He never says her name. “I want to be trusted. I want to be included. I want to be a part of this family, because right now, I don’t feel like I am.”
“You are,” she tries to reach out for him, but Gansey takes a step back. It’s painful to reject her, but he can’t stand being touched now. “Gansey, of course you are—”
“Am I? Because as far as I can tell, it’s you, and Ronan, and Adam, and even Declan against the world. And what about me?” He hates how childish he sounds. He hates how vulnerable having so many ties makes him.
Maybe this is why he left his family, left Malory. Maybe this is why Gansey always preferred to be the one to do the leaving.
“You’re loved!” She shouts, less love and more anger in those words. There’s static in the air now, the world responding to Blue’s rage. “Goddamn it, Gansey! Of course you’re part of this stupid fucking family! Of course you’re loved! But I can’t— I just can’t tell you every little thing about myself— or Ronan!— and you have to learn to be okay with it!”
“What the fuck is so big that you can’t tell me?!” Gansey shouts too. And, alright, maybe this is a fight after all. “Who is Matthew’s father?! What kind of criminal are you all covering up for?!”
Blue’s face pinches in anger, in distress. Gansey doesn’t care.
The lights flicker.
“Fuck. You.” She spits. “You know I can’t say it. It’s not my fucking secret—”
“No, but you have one, don’t you? You and Adam. I’m not stupid, Blue. I see the way you’re acting around him. Are you together again? Is that it?”
“Of course not! How could you ask me that?!”
The hairs on the back of Gansey’s neck stand and he can smell lightening. Like Noah when he’s raging. Like Ronan when he’s dreaming.
“Well, I don’t know what else to think! I just know there’s something wrong, and no one will fucking tell me a thing! And I feel fucking useless all the time, because I’m supposed to be fixing things, but I can’t do shit when you won’t tell me what’s wrong!”
“Nothing is wrong!” Blue turns her back to him and that’s how Gansey knows she’s lying. That’s how he knows that everything is wrong. “Nothing is wrong, Gansey. Everything is gonna be okay. Everything is gonna be okay. Everything is gonna be okay,” she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself as much as him.
Gansey bites his cheek until it bleeds, because nothing will be okay ever again.
Because it’s already February.
Only three more months before Gansey is dead and gone forever.
The lights flicker once more, turning bright all at once and then going out. Blue screams. Gansey screams too. And then Noah is there.
It’s Noah, but it isn’t Noah.
It’s Noah, but it’s so angry. No longer a friend, now just a ghost.
“Blue! Cut him off! Cut him off!” Gansey shouts, but he’s too late. He’s too slow.
This terrifying Noah lunges for Blue, clawing at her face and painting Monmouth’s wooden floors in red. Gansey’s ears buzz and, for once is his life, it’s not his death that he sees coming.
+++
The hospital smells of hand sanitizing and rubber.
Adam never thought much about smells before, but it’s like his nose has gotten better since his ear stopped working. Gansey said it was because his body was overcompensating for one of his senses being half-gone, but Ronan said it was just because he has more braincells to dedicate to smelling now.
The waiting room is packed-full, like it often is late at night, and for the first time in his life, Adam is put in the position of waiting, instead of being waited on.
He feels vaguely nauseous, sitting in his plastic chair and wringing his fingers together. He fells shitty, drowning in fear and wondering if this is what Gansey felt all of those times when it was Adam locked past those hospital doors, Robert’s handprints all over his body.
Ronan sits next to him, tapping his foot incessantly and chewing on his bracelets. Adam catches a glimpse of a sharp canine and wonders if Ronan could actually tear into meat with those teeth. He looks like he could. Ronan Lynch looks built for fights.
Gansey sits on his other side, but Adam isn’t brave enough to look him way yet. So, he keeps his eyes focused on the shell of Ronan’s ear and tries to keep his mind blissfully blank.
Unfortunately, Adam’s mind has always been a prison.
And a very loud one at that.
The arrival of the doctor shocks them all into standing. Adam lurks back while Maura, Calla, and Gansey hoard her, asking a million questions about Blue and what happened.
Ronan hangs at his side, eyes glued to his boots like they’re the most interesting thing in this room.
When they’re allowed in, Adam follows numbly, trying to focus on how his steps synchronize with Ronan’s when he walks right behind him.
The room they’re led into is huge and there are multiple beds resting up against the wall, some of the occupied, but most empty. Blue sits further away from the door, covered in a thin sheet and wearing one of those ugly hospital gowns. Her skin looks ashy under the fluorescent lights and it twists something in Adam’s gut to see her look this small. There’s gauze over her right eye, a mass of white covering nearly half of her face.
Adam doesn’t know what to say, what to do, so he just hangs by the bed and tries to project comfort as best as he can. It’s hard. Adam Parrish was not made for comfort.
Maura and Calla flank her, sitting on the bed and running worried hands all over.
“How are you feeling?” The Gray Man asks, his voice warm and worried.
“Like I just spent the last however many hours in surgery,” she snorts. “So, just peachy.”
Maura clears her throat, “the doctors said—”
“I heard what they said,” Blue cuts her off. Not unkindly, just tired. “I lost my eye, Mom, not my hearing.”
It’s meant to be a joke, but no one laughs.
Adam shoves his hands in his pockets, just to have something to do with them. He tries not to think about Noah’s hands. About what they’ve done to Blue.
He fails.
“He tried to warn me,” she laughs, but it sounds a little bit deranged. “Fuck, he tried to warn me, but I didn’t understand,” she presses a hand to her eye and winces in pain.
“Who tried to warn you?” Maura’s voice is hard.
Blue glances up at Gansey, before her eyes slid to Ronan. Adam turns to look at him too, everyone does.
There’s so much inside of him, so many dreams, so many secrets, so much that’s just unknown. Sometimes, Adam can’t help but wonder what could possibly make a man like Ronan Lynch. What wonder and what terror could combine to make something so impossible.
“He tried to protect you,” Ronan looks away, his face pinching with distress, with rage, with grief.
“Who?” Maura demands again, even when everyone already knows the answer.
“Matthew,” Gansey says, his voice carefully neutral. He always did when he was feeling too much, put on a mask. Put on layers upon layers for protection. “The drawings. Fuck, the drawings.”
“What drawings?” This time, it’s Calla’s turn to ask.
The Gray Man stiffens. “That was weeks ago.”
“That’s why I said it was a warning,” Blue clarifies, and then turns to her mother and Calla. “Matthew gave me these drawings the other week. Of my face mangled by a hand and of Noah being—,” she struggles to find a word.
“Scary,” The Gray Man offers.
“Sure,” she shrugs. “Of Noah being scary.”
Maura and Calla are silent for a while, before Maura stands up to better face her daughter.
“Why didn’t you tell us? You should have told us, Blue.”
“Forgive me for thinking it was nothing. He’s a toddler, sometimes toddlers just do shit. How was I supposed to know he’s psychic or something?”
“He’s not psychic,” Calla says. “Trust me, we would know if he was.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Gansey shouts, before biting his tongue and lowering his tone again. “He drew this exact thing happening, weeks before it actually happened. Isn’t that what being a psychic is all about?”
“No,” Calla says firmly. Gansey’s mouth snaps shut. “Being a psychic means seeing time differently than other people. Means that, sometimes, time doesn’t work in a straight line. I’ve been living with that little snakelet for months now, and trust me when I say I would have noticed if he was a psychic.”
Her voice carries the absolute truth, so they all believe it.
Ronan is looking down at his boots again. “He—,” he tries, but then bites his lips and glares at nothing and everything. “What is he then? If not a psychic, then what is he?” It doesn’t sound like he’s just asking about Matthew anymore.
Calla shrugs. “Shouldn’t you know best? After all, you’re his brother.”
“His brother,” Ronan sneers, looking out the window for a moment. Adam can see how much it kills him, this secret. “Noah would never hurt Blue on purpose,” he suddenly says.
The change in subject is abrupt, but they all allow for it. They can all see that Ronan needs it.
“He didn’t,” Blue sighs, resting back on the pillow. “He wasn’t himself.”
Gansey nods, face pinched in worry. “Noah hasn’t been himself for a while now.”
“It was worse this time,” she insists. “I think I made it worse too. I think I fed the wrong part of Noah and he—,” she gestures at her gauzed-up face.
Adam does his best not to cringe, but he fails.
“What did it feel like?” Ronan asks. “To be attacked, I mean.”
“Ronan—,” Gansey berates, but Blue shuts up him with a glare.
“It felt,” she purses her lips, a deep frown appearing on her forehead. Adam hates seeing her look so scared, so hurt. (Is this what Gansey felt? All those times before? When it was Adam sitting in a hospital bed and Gansey standing at his side.) “It felt cold, and unnatural. It felt like there was something inside me that wasn’t supposed to be there, like an extra organ, or a parasite, or a—”
“Boogeyman,” Ronan says and Adam remember dreaming with him all those months ago. He remembers scrying in a motel room and seeing his best friend being hunted down by a creature made of nothing but hungry hands and mouths. Of the thing that seems to hunger for Ronan only and forever.
“You think it’s the same thing that attacked you?” he asks and his voice feel hoarse from disuse.
“I do,” Ronan nods. “Same demon, but it’s finding different ways to hurt me. But why?” he’s trembling as he says it, fists tight and eyes haunted. “It was supposed to be after me only.”
The boogeyman. The thing. The darkness. The demon.
Adam can come up with a lot of names for the same kind of death.
“Maybe I’m just as important as you. Jealous?” Blue teases, but it lands flat.
Ronan’s haunting continues.
“This isn’t funny, Blue,” Maura says, steel in her voice.
“Oh, I’m sorry. When you get your eye clawed off you can cope however you want, but I would like to use humor, thank you very much.”
Once again, no one laughs.
Adam thinks of that motel room again. Of holding hands with Maura and Calla and letting him mind plunge into the darkness. He had been so sure that Blue was important then. That they were all important, all interconnected. It seemed like a good thing at the time, but he’s not so sure anymore.
“When are you getting released?” Gansey finally speaks into the silence.
“Tomorrow, when they’re sure my eye won’t get horribly infected and kill me.”
This time, Ronan does laugh.
“Please, you’re too stubborn to die from something as simple as an infection. You’re gonna outlive us all, Sargent,” he grins.
“Not a hard thing, considering the way you live,” she grins back.
“You sound like my mom,” Ronan snorts and pats her on the shoulder. “Rest up, enjoy the peace of this hospital room, ‘cause when you’re back home, the war is on.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she waves him off, but their short banter seems to have lifted the mood a little bit. “Go take care of you little monster. Tell him I’m fine.”
“Oh, he isn’t worried,” Ronan says. “I told him you went on a very long and gruesome journey to combat caries and that he’ll have to do it too unless he lets me brush his teeth.”
“I though you didn’t lie.”
“I have a toddler, some compromises are necessary,” Ronan shrugs.
“Did he believe you?”
Ronan makes a face. “I don’t think so,” and then he loops his arms around Gansey and Adam, pulling them closer to his chest. “C’mon, let’s let little Miss Sargent rest in fucking pieces.”
“Asshole,” she says, but it’s fond.
“You know it,” Ronan shoots back.
“Are you gonna be okay?” Gansey asks, fighting back against Ronan’s hold and trying to stay in the room.
“Fuck off. Yes, I will. Fuck off again,” she flips them the bird with a grin. “Stop worrying and go with Ronan.”
Gansey doesn’t look too happy about it, but he does melt a little bit.
Adam, who doesn’t know how to be comforting, and doesn’t know how to be on the other side of the hospital room, and doesn’t know how not to worry, just lets himself be dragged off without another word.
+++
Maura Sargent is a sister.
She grew up knowing this fact. She grew up holding hands with Jimi and knowing of Neeve’s existence, but she never stopped to consider what being a sister meant. It was less something that she thought about, and more something that she just was.
Being a sister has never before been useful, it was always fighting for the bathroom, and having your clothes stolen, and being compared by teachers in school. Maura didn’t hate being a sister, but she also never thought much about it.
She does now.
Because, as a sister, she can definitively say that there’s something off about the pair of brothers her daughter dragged to live under their roof.
Initially, she just chalked their strangeness up to them being traumatized orphans, but as the weeks passed, something else began to unfurl before her eyes. The devil was in the details. Hands that lingered longer than necessary, glances so charged that Maura could swear the lights flickered with it, smiles so small and so private.
It makes Maura nervous. It makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
Because if her hunch is correct, then they’re just invited a hurricane into their home. And the worst part about hurricanes is that they do not discriminate when taking things down.
“We might have invited the devil to live under our roof,” Maura says, lounging on her bed, side by side with Calla.
Her best friend just hums and takes another sip of her Bloody Mary, taking care not to spill any on the sheets. She made it right after they came back from the hospital.
Maura had wanted to stay with Blue overnight, but unfortunately, her daughter was adamant everyone went back home to rest properly and refused to budge when they argued back. She could be very stubborn when she wanted to.
“Well, he is your ex,” Calla snickers, even when they both know Maura wasn’t talking about Artemus. “Besides, what other home could house a devil other than this one?”
Maura scrunches up her nose, picking at her nails and chipping the fresh polish.
“You’re worried about Blue,” Calla says.
“Of course I am. She’s lost her eye, for god’s sake! And you know what I saw when we went scrying.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I interpreted it very differently.”
This is one of the worst parts about having lost Persephone. That now there’s no one left to play mediator when she and Calla are at opposition.
“These Raven Boys will be the death of my daughter.”
“As far as I can see, she’s the one who will be the death of one of them,” Calla chuckles, taking a big bite out of the celery garnishing her drink. “What do you think you saw?”
Maura presses the heel of her hands on her eyes until she sees colorful shapes.
“I saw something bad hunting my daughter. Which, by the way, did come true. Or did you forget about the eye?”
“I did not,” Calla sighs, momentarily down. “But an eye is not a life. It’ll make things harder, yes. But she’s still alive. She’s still the bravest girl I know. She’ll be just fine. Don’t you know the woman you raised?”
Maura purses her lips and looks away, because she can’t say anything to that. She does know the wonderful woman she raised. She recognizes bravery when she looks it in the eye.
So, instead, she chooses to ask, “what did you see when we scryed?”
Calla hums in that condescending way she always does when she thinks she knows better than everyone else on planet Earth. Maura hates it.
“I saw our girl fighting against something bigger than her. And I saw her winning.”
“She was being swallowed whole,” Maura chokes on all the worry in her lungs.
“That’s what you saw. I think it says more about you than her.”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me,” Maura scoffs, rolling up and putting some distance between herself and Calla. “You’re not good at it.”
“I’m excellent at it. It’s why you hate it so much,” her friend snorts, pressing the cold glass against Maura’s arm and offering her a sip.
She accepts, but only because her throat is dry and Calla is one of the best bartenders Maura’s ever known. The drink is perfect on her tongue, strong, and salty, and full of flavor. She resents it very much.
“You can’t keep her safe forever,” Calla’s voice is so careful, like she’s dealing with the harried creature Maura has becomes, instead of her best friend. “You never used to be this worried before, what changed?”
Maura takes a bit out of the celery and then spits it back, remembering that she hates the taste of vegetables.
What changed, Calla wants to know.
Everything changed, Maura wants to answer.
“I just don’t want my daughter to be hurt.”
“That’s not up to you,” it’s a bitter reminder, that there’s no love Maura can give that will keep Blue safe. “And if you wanted her to remain unhurt you wouldn’t have left. Did you talk to her about it yet?”
“Yes,” Maura lies, taking another huge gulp of the drink and feeling it burn down her throat.
Calla’s smile is acidic, more of a showing of fangs and less of a real smile. “And you wonder where Blue gets her teeth from.”
“I was hoping she’d come out more cautious than me,” it’s a futile hope, but Maura can’t help but hold it in her chest.
“She’s plenty cautious. I’d say she’s a little bit too cautious even. But you can’t control where life takes you.”
“Correction, she was cautious. She’s been nothing but reckless since meeting her Raven Boys.”
“I thought you wanted her to be bolder,” Calla points out and Maura can taste the hypocrisy on her tongue.
“About the future,” she hisses. “About her own worth and about how far she can go. Not about this,” she gestures emphatically at everything and nothing. “Not about demons, and leylines, and dreamers, and Welsh kings.”
“You blame the boys?” Calla lifts a single eyebrow and Maura shrinks under the weight of that judgment.
“That thing is hunting down Ronan, not Blue. She’s just getting caught up in the cross-fire.”
“I know,” Calla sits up with a flourish, snatching the drink from Maura’s hands like she’s trying to prove a point. “And you know how much I used to dislike the boy, but I won’t leave him out to die. He’s just a kid.”
“We both know that’s not true,” she means that Ronan is already twenty, and twenty is far too old to be treated like a child, and she means that Ronan is confusing, and unknowable, and impossible.
“He’s younger than Blue, so he’s a kid to me. Besides, there’s the little snakelet too.”
Maura purses her lips, because Calla is right and Matthew makes everything a thousand times more complicated.
“Their little brother,” Calla chuckles, because they’re both smart enough to know there’s something else hiding under the Lynch family’s foundations.
“Their little brother,” Maura agrees. “Like I said,” she smacks her lips once. The words feel right, but they taste bad. “I think we might have invited the devil to live under our roof.”
“And like I said, what other home could ever house a devil?”