The Raven Boys

Ashley blinked vapidly, then said, "Sounds like a metaphor."

Perhaps she wasn’t as dumb as they’d thought.

"Maybe so," Gansey said. He made a grandiose gesture to the maps on the wall, covered with the ley lines he believed Glendower had traveled along. Sweeping up the journal behind him, he paged through maps and notes as examples. "I think Glendower’s body was brought over to the New World. Specifically, here. Virginia. I want to find where he’s buried."

To Adam’s relief, Gansey left out the part about how he believed the legends that said Glendower was still alive, centuries later. He left out the part about how he believed the eternally sleeping Glendower would grant a favor to whoever woke him. He left out the part about how it haunted him, this need to find this long-lost king. He left out the midnight phone calls to Adam when he couldn’t sleep for obsessing about his search. He left out the microfiche and the museums, the newspaper features and the metal detectors, the frequent flier miles and the battered foreign language phrase books.

And he left out all the parts about magic and the ley line.

"That’s crazy," Ashley said. Her eyes were locked on the journal. "Why do you think he’s here?"

There were two possible versions of this answer. One was grounded merely in history and was infinitely suitable for general consumption. The other added divining rods and magic to the equation. Some days, some rotten days, Adam believed the former, and only barely. But being Gansey’s friend meant that more often he hoped for the latter. This was where Ronan, much to Adam’s dissatisfaction, excelled: His belief in the supernatural explanation was unwavering. Adam’s faith was imperfect.

Ashley, either because she was transient or because she’d been deemed skeptical, got the historical version. In his best professor voice, Gansey explained a bit about Welsh place names in the area, fifteenth-century artifacts found buried in Virginia soil, and historical support for an early, pre-Columbus Welsh landing in America.

Midway through the lecture, Noah — Monmouth Manufacturing’s reclusive third resident — emerged from the meticulous room directly next to the office Ronan had claimed as his bedroom. Noah’s bed shared the tiny space with a piece of mysterious equipment Adam guessed was some sort of printing press.

Noah, stepping farther into the room, didn’t so much smile at Ashley as goggle at her. He wasn’t the best with new people.

"That’s Noah," Declan said. He said it in a way that confirmed Adam’s assumption: Monmouth Manufacturing and the boys who lived in it were a tourist stop for Declan and Ashley, a conversation piece for a later dinner.

Noah extended his hand.

"Oh! Your hand is cold." Ashley cupped her fingers against her shirt to warm them.

"I’ve been dead for seven years," Noah said. "That’s as warm as they get."

Noah, unlike his pristine room, always seemed a little grubby. There was something out of place about his clothing, his mostly combed-back fair hair. His unkempt uniform always made Adam feel a little less like he stuck out. It was hard to feel like part of the Aglionby crowd when standing next to Gansey, whose crisp-as-George-Washington white collared shirt alone cost more than Adam’s bicycle (anyone who said you couldn’t tell the difference between a shirt from the mall and a shirt made by a clever Italian man had never seen the latter), or even Ronan, who had spent nine hundred dollars on a tattoo merely to piss off his brother.

Ashley’s obliging giggle was cut off as Ronan’s bedroom door opened. A cloud like there would never be sun again crossed Declan’s face.

Ronan and Declan Lynch were undeniably brothers, with the same dark brown hair and sharp nose, but Declan was solid where Ronan was brittle. Declan’s wide jaw and smile said, Vote for me while Ronan’s buzzed head and thin mouth warned that this species was poisonous.

"Ronan," Declan said. On the phone with Adam earlier, he had asked, When will Ronan not be available? "I thought you had tennis."

"I did," Ronan replied.

There was a moment of silence, where Declan considered what he wanted to say in front of Ashley, and Ronan enjoyed the effect that awkward silence had on his brother. The two elder Lynch brothers — there were three total at Aglionby — had been at odds for as long as Adam had known them. Unlike most of the world, Gansey preferred Ronan to his elder brother Declan, and so the lines had been drawn. Adam suspected Gansey’s preference was because Ronan was earnest even if he was horrible, and with Gansey, honesty was golden.

Declan waited a second too long to speak, and Ronan crossed his arms over his chest. "You’ve got quite the guy here, Ashley. You’ll have a great night with him and then some other girl can have a great night with him tomorrow."

A fly buzzed against a windowpane far above their heads. Behind Ronan, his door, covered with photocopies of his speeding tickets, drifted closed.

Ashley’s mouth didn’t make an O so much as a sideways D. A second too late, Gansey punched Ronan in the arm.

"He’s sorry," Gansey said.

Ashley’s mouth was slowly closing. She blinked at the map of Wales and back to Ronan. He’d chosen his weapon well: only the truth, untempered by kindness.

"My brother is —" said Declan. But he didn’t finish. There wasn’t anything he could say that Ronan hadn’t already proven. He said, "We’re going now. Ronan, I think you need to reconsider your —" But again, he had no words to end the sentence. His brother had taken all the catchy ones.

Declan snagged Ashley’s hand, jerking her attention away and toward the apartment door.

"Declan," Gansey started.

"Don’t try to make this better," Declan warned. As he pulled Ashley out into the tiny stairwell and down the stairs, Adam heard the beginnings of damage control: He has problems, I told you, I tried to make sure he wouldn’t be here, he’s the one who found Dad, it messed him up, let’s go get seafood instead, don’t you think we look like lobster tonight? We do.

The moment the apartment door was closed, Gansey said, "Come on, Ronan."

Ronan’s expression was still incendiary. His code of honor left no room for infidelity, for casual relationships. It wasn’t that he didn’t condone them; he couldn’t understand them.

"So he’s a man-whore. It’s not your problem," Gansey said. Ronan was not really Gansey’s problem, either, in Adam’s opinion, but they’d had this argument before.