The Raven Boys

What happens to you, Gansey? she wondered. When do you become that person?

Gansey looked up at her, and there was a crease between his eyebrows. "I don’t know how to choose. Could you pick a card for me? Will that work?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Blue saw Adam shifting in his chair, frowning.

Persephone answered from behind Blue. "If you want it to."

"It’s about intention," Maura added.

"I want you to," he said. "Please."

Blue fanned the cards across the table; they slithered loosely over the finish. She let her fingers float above them. Once, Maura had told her that the correct cards sometimes felt warm or tingly when her fingers were near them. For Blue, of course, each card felt identical. One, however, had slid farther than the others, and that was the one she chose.

As she flipped it over, she let out a little helpless laugh.

The page of cups looked back at Blue with her own face. It felt like someone was laughing at her, but she had no one to blame for the selection of the card but herself.

When Maura saw it, her voice went still and remote. "Not that one. Make him choose another."

"Maura," said Persephone mildly, but Maura just waved her hand, dismissing her.

"Another one," she insisted.

"What’s wrong with that one?" Gansey asked.

"It has Blue’s energy on it," Maura said. "It wasn’t meant to be yours. You’ll have to pick it yourself."

Persephone moved her mouth back and forth, but she didn’t say anything. Blue replaced the card and shuffled the deck with less drama than before.

When she offered the cards to him, Gansey turned his face away like he was pulling a raffle winner. His fingers grazed the edges of the cards, contemplative. He selected one, then flipped it over to show the room.

It was the page of cups.

He looked at the face on the card, and then at Blue’s face, and Blue knew that he’d seen the similarity.

Maura leaned forward and snatched the card from his fingers. "Pick another one."

"Now why?" Gansey said. "What’s wrong with that card? What does it mean?"

"Nothing’s wrong with it," Maura replied. "It’s just not yours."

Now, for the first time, Blue saw an edge of true aggravation to Gansey’s expression, and it made her like him a little better. So there was something below the raven boy exterior, maybe. Flippantly, Gansey snagged another card, clearly finished with this exercise. With flourish, he turned the card over and slapped it on the table.

Blue swallowed.

Maura said, "That’s your card."

On the card on the table was a black knight astride a white horse. The knight’s helmet was lifted so that it was obvious that his face was a bare skull dominated by eyeless sockets. The sun set beyond him, and below his horse’s hooves lay a corpse.

Outside the windows behind them, a breeze hissed audibly through the trees.

"Death." Gansey read the bottom of the card. He didn’t sound surprised or alarmed. He just read the word like he would read eggs or Cincinnati.

"Great job, Maura," Calla said. Her arms were crossed firmly over her chest. "You going to interpret that for the kid?"

"Possibly we should just give him a refund," Persephone suggested, although Gansey had not paid yet.

"I thought that psychics didn’t predict death," Adam said quietly. "I read that the Death card was only symbolic."

Maura and Calla and Persephone all made vague noises. Blue, utterly aware of the truth of Gansey’s fate, felt ill. Aglionby boy or not, he was only her age, and he obviously had friends who cared for him and a life that involved a very orange car, and it was hideous to know he’d be dead in less than twelve months.

"Actually," Gansey said, "I don’t care about that."

Every pair of eyes in the room was on him as he stood the card on its end to study it.

"I mean, the cards are very interesting," he said. He said the cards are very interesting like someone would say this is very interesting to a very strange sort of cake that they didn’t quite want to finish. "And I don’t want to discount what you do. But I didn’t really come here to have my future told to me. I’m quite okay with finding that out for myself."

He cast a quick glance at Calla at this, obviously realizing that he was walking a fine line between "polite" and "Ronan."

"Really, I came because I was hoping to ask you a question about energy," Gansey continued. "I know you deal with energy work, and I’ve been trying to find a ley line I think is near Henrietta. Do you know anything about that?"

The journal!

"Ley line?" Maura repeated. "Maybe. I don’t know if I know it by that name. What is it?"

Blue was a little stunned. She’d always thought her mother was the most truthful person around.

"They’re straight energy lines that crisscross the globe," Gansey explained. "They’re supposed to connect major spiritual places. Adam thought you might know about them because you deal with energy."

It was obvious that he meant the corpse road, but Maura didn’t offer any information. She just pressed her lips together and looked at Persephone and Calla. "Does that ring a bell to you two?"

Persephone pointed a finger straight in the air and then said, "I forgot about my pie crust."

She withdrew from the room. Calla said, "I’d have to think about it. I’m not good with specifics."

There was a faint, amused smile on Gansey’s face that meant he knew they were lying. It was a strangely wise expression; once again Blue got the sense that he seemed older than the boys he’d brought with him.

"I’ll look into it," Maura said. "If you leave your number, I can give you a call if I find out anything about it."

Gansey replied, coolly polite, "Oh, that’s quite all right. How much for the reading?"

Standing, Maura said, "Oh, just twenty."

Blue thought this was criminal. Gansey clearly had spent more than twenty dollars on the laces for his Top-Siders.

He frowned at Maura over the top of his open wallet. There were a lot of bills in it. They could’ve been ones, but Blue doubted it. She could also see his driver’s license through a clear window; not closely enough to make out the details, but close enough to see that the name printed on it looked a lot longer than just Gansey. "Twenty?"