The Raven Boys

"Well," Persephone said. "First, you might find out whose journal it is."

Blue’s shoulders sagged. It was a relentlessly proper answer, and one that she might have expected from Maura or Calla. Of course she knew she had to return it to its rightful owner. But then where would the fun of it go?

Persephone added, "Then I think you’d better find out if it’s true, don’t you?"

Chapter 12

Adam wasn’t waiting by the bank of mailboxes in the morning.

The first time that Gansey had come to pick up Adam, he’d driven past the entrance to Adam’s neighborhood. Actually, more properly, he’d used it as a place to turn around and head back the way he’d come. The road was two ruts through a field — even driveway was too lofty a word for it — and it was impossible to believe, at first look, that it led to a single house, much less a collection of them. Once Gansey had found the house, things had gone even more poorly. At the sight of Gansey’s Aglionby sweater, Adam’s father had charged out, firing on all cylinders. For weeks after that, Ronan had called Gansey "the S.R.F.," where the S stood for Soft, the R stood for Rich, and the F for something else.

Now Adam just met Gansey where the asphalt ended.

But there was no one waiting by the clustered herd of mailboxes now. It was just empty space, and a lot of it. This part of the valley was endlessly flat in comparison to the other side of Henrietta, and somehow this field was always several degrees drier and more colorless than the rest of the valley, like both the major roads and the rain avoided it. Even at eight in the morning, there were no shadows anywhere in the world.

Peering down the desiccated drive, Gansey tried the house phone, but it merely rang. His watch said he had eighteen minutes to make the fifteen-minute drive to school.

He waited. The engine threw the car to and fro as the Pig idled. He watched the gearshift knob rattle. His feet were roasting from proximity to the V-8. The entire cabin was beginning to stink of gasoline.

He called Monmouth Manufacturing. Noah answered, sounding like he’d been woken.

"Noah," Gansey said loudly, to be heard over the engine. Noah had let him leave his journal behind at Nino’s after all, and its absence was surprisingly unsettling. "Do you remember Adam saying he had work after school today?"

On the days that Adam had work, he often rode his bike in so that he’d have it to get to places later.

Noah grunted to the negative.

Sixteen minutes until class.

"Call me if he calls," Gansey said.

"I won’t be here," Noah replied. "I’m almost gone anyway."

Gansey hung up and unsuccessfully tried the house again. Adam’s mother might be there but not answering, but he didn’t really have time to go back into the neighborhood and investigate.

He could cut class.

Gansey tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. "Come on, Adam."

Of all of the places Gansey had attended boarding school — and he’d attended many in his four years of underage wandering — Aglionby Academy was his father’s favorite, which meant it was the most likely to land its student body in the Ivy League. Or the Senate. It also meant, however, that it was the most difficult school Gansey had ever been to. Before Henrietta, he’d made his search for Glendower his primary activity, and school had been a distant second. Gansey was clever enough and he was good at studying if nothing else, so it hadn’t been a problem to skip classes or push homework to the bottom of the list. But at Aglionby, there were no failing grades. If you dropped below a B average, you were out on your ass. And Dick Gansey II had let his son know that if he couldn’t hack it in a private school, Gansey was cut out of the will.

He’d said it nicely, though, over a plate of fettuccine.

Gansey couldn’t cut class. Not after missing school the day before. That was what it came down to. Fourteen minutes to make a fifteen-minute drive to school, and Adam not waiting.

He felt the old fear creeping slowly out of his lungs.

Don’t panic. You were wrong about Ronan last night. You have to stop this. Death isn’t as close as you think.

Dispirited, Gansey tried the home phone one more time. Nothing. He had to go. Adam must’ve taken his bike, he must’ve had work, he must’ve had errands to run and forgotten to tell him. The rutted drive down to the neighborhood was still empty.

Come on, Adam.

Wiping his palms on his slacks, he put his hands back on the steering wheel and headed for the school.

Gansey didn’t get a chance to see if Adam had made it to Aglionby until third period, when they both had Latin. This was, inexplicably, the only class Ronan never missed. Ronan was head of class in Latin. He studied joylessly but relentlessly, as if his life depended on it. Directly behind him was Adam, Aglionby’s star pupil, otherwise at the top of every class that he took. Like Ronan, Adam studied relentlessly, because his future life did depend on it.

For his part, Gansey preferred French. He told Helen there was very little purpose to a language that couldn’t be used to translate a menu, but really, French was just easier for him to learn; his mother spoke a little. He’d originally resigned himself to taking Latin in order to translate historical texts for Glendower research, but Ronan’s proficiency at the language robbed Gansey’s study of any urgency.

Latin was held in Borden House, a small frame house on the other side of the Aglionby campus from Welch Hall, the main academic building. As Gansey strode hurriedly across the center green, Ronan appeared, knocking Gansey’s arm. His eyes looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

Ronan hissed, "Where’s Parrish?"

"He didn’t come in with me today," Gansey said, mood sinking. Ronan and Adam shared second period. "You haven’t seen him yet?"

"Wasn’t in class."

Behind Gansey, someone punched his shoulder blade and said, Gansey boy! as they trotted by. Gansey halfheartedly lifted three fingers, the signal of the rowing team.

"I tried calling him at the house," he said.

Ronan replied, "Well, Poor Boy needs a cell."

A few months earlier, Gansey had offered to buy Adam a cell phone, and by so doing had launched the longest fight they’d ever had, a week of silence that had resolved itself only when Ronan did something more offensive than either of them could accomplish.

"Lynch!"

Gansey looked in the direction of the voice; Ronan didn’t. The owner of the voice was halfway across the green, difficult to identify in the homogenous Aglionby uniform.