The Dream Thieves

On the counter, Chainsaw tore shreds from a roll of paper towels. He snapped his fingers at her and, with an insolent gurgle, she flapped from the counter to the table, claws making a substantial scratch-click as she landed. Ronan was abruptly satisfied with her as a dream creature. He hadn’t even asked for her. His subconscious had just, for once, sent him something nice instead of something homicidal.

Gansey asked Calla, “Why are we here?”

Calla echoed, “Yes, Maura, why are we here?”

Maura had entered from the other room; behind her Ronan glimpsed the corner of a bed, a gray suitcase. There was a sound like pipes clanging, a tap running. She dusted off her palms and joined them in the kitchen. “Because when Mr. Gray comes out here, I want you to look him in the eye and convince him not to kidnap you.”

Gansey elbowed Ronan.

Ronan looked up sharply. “What, me?”

“Yes, you,” Maura said. “Mr. Gray was sent here to retrieve an object that lets the owner take things from dreams. The Greywaren. As you know, that’s you.”

He felt a little thrill at the word Greywaren.

Yes, that’s me.

Calla added, “And, unbelievably, it falls to your charm to convince him to have mercy on you.”

He smiled nastily at her. She smiled nastily back. Both smiles said, I’ve got your number.

There was no part of Ronan that was surprised by this news. Part of him, he realized, was surprised it had taken so long. He felt he must have prompted it: He had been told not to go back to the Barns, and he had. His father had told him not to tell anyone about his dreams, and he had. One by one, he was violating every rule in his life.

Of course someone was looking. Of course they had found him.

“He’s not the only one looking,” Blue said suddenly. “Is he? That’s what all of these break-ins are.” Quite impossibly, she produced a pink switchblade to punctuate this statement. That little knife was the most shocking thing about the conversation so far.

“I’m afraid so,” Maura replied.

Burglars, Ronan thought, all at once.

Gansey said, “Are the —”

Ronan interrupted, “Is he the one who beat up my brother? I should buy him a card if he is.”

“Does it matter?” Maura asked, at about the same time that Calla asked, “Do you think your brother told anybody anything?”

“I’m sure he did,” Ronan said darkly. “But don’t worry— none of it was true.”

Gansey took control. In his voice, Ronan could hear the relief that he knew enough about the situation to actually do so. He asked whether Mr. Gray really wanted to kidnap Ronan, whether his employer knew that the Greywaren was definitely in Henrietta, whether the others wandering about knew. Finally, he asked, “What happens to Mr. Gray if he doesn’t come back with something?”

Maura pursed her lips. “Let’s just use death as a short version of the consequences.”

Calla added, “But for decision-making purposes, assume it’s worse than that.”

Blue muttered, “He can take Joseph Kavinsky.”

“If they take that other boy,” Calla said, “they’ll be back for the snake.” This was said with a jerk of her chin toward Ronan. Then her eyes flickered up to Maura.

The Gray Man stood in the doorway behind Maura, his gray suitcase in one hand and a gray jacket slung over the other. He set them both down and straightened.

There was that heavy silence that sometimes happens when a hit man enters a room.

It was against Ronan’s nature to appear overly interested in anything, but he couldn’t help staring at the Gray Man. It was the man from the Barns, the man who’d taken the puzzle box. He would have never put the words hit man to him. To him, a hit man was something else. A bouncer. A body-builder. An action hero. This wary predator was none of those things. His build was unassuming, all sly kinetics, but his eyes —

Ronan was suddenly afraid of him. He was afraid of him in the same way that he was afraid of the night horrors. Because they had killed him before, and they would kill him again, and he precisely remembered the pain of each death. He felt the fear in his chest, and in his face, and in the back of his head. Sharp and stinging, like a tire iron.

Chainsaw scrambled to Ronan’s shoulder and ducked low, eyes on the Gray Man. She cawed stridently, just once.

For his part, the Gray Man stared back, his expression guarded. The longer he looked at Ronan and Chainsaw, the more his eyebrows furrowed. And the longer he looked, the closer Gansey edged to Ronan, nearly imperceptible. At some point it became the Gray Man watching the space between the two of them instead of Ronan.

Finally, the Gray Man said, “If I don’t return with the Greywaren on the Fourth of July, they’re telling my brother where I am, and he will kill me. He will do it very slowly.”

Ronan believed him in a way that he didn’t believe most things in life. It was real like a memory: This strange man would be tormented in the bathroom of one of the Henrietta motels and then he would be discarded and no one would ever look for him.

The Gray Man didn’t have to tell any of them how much easier it would be to merely take Ronan to his employer. He also didn’t have to tell any of them how simple it would be to do it against Ronan’s will. Though Calla stood beside the gun of his that she’d retrieved from the cabinet — now Ronan saw why — Ronan didn’t believe in it. If it came down to them versus Mr. Gray, he thought Mr. Gray would win.

It was like hearing the night horrors coming in his dreams. The inevitability of it.

Gansey, very softly, said, “Please.”

Maura sighed.

“Brothers,” said the Gray Man. He did not mean Declan or Matthew. At once the power went out of him. “I don’t care for birds.”

Then, after a moment, “I’m not a kidnapper.”

Maura shot a rather meaningful look at Calla, who pretended not to see it.

“Are you sure your brother will be able to find you?” Gansey asked.

“I’m certain I won’t be able to go home again,” the Gray Man said. “I don’t have many things there, but my books. . . . I would have to stay on the move for quite a while. It took me years to lose him before. And even if I leave, it won’t stop the others. They’re tracking the energy abnormalities, above and beyond what runs through Henrietta, and right now, they point right at him.” He looked at Ronan.

Gansey, who had looked aghast at the idea of the Gray Man having to abandon his books, frowned even deeper.