The Raven Boys

Warily, he asked, "Why is there a joke written on a random stone?"

The mirth had run out of Ronan’s face. He touched the words, traced the letters. His chest rose and fell, rose and fell.

"Ronan?" asked Gansey.

"There’s a joke," Ronan answered finally, not looking away from the words, "in case I didn’t recognize my own handwriting."

This, Adam realized, was what had distressed him about the words. Now that it had been pointed out, it was obvious that the handwriting was Ronan’s. It was just so out of context, painted on this rock with an arcane pigment, smudged and worn by the weather.

"I don’t understand," Ronan said. He kept tracing and retracing the letters. He was badly shaken.

Gansey rallied. He couldn’t bear to see any of his number rattled. Voice firm, like he was certain, like he was lecturing on world history, he said, "We saw before how the ley line played with time. We can see it right now on my watch. It’s flexible. You haven’t been here before, Ronan, but it doesn’t mean you didn’t come here later. Minutes later. Days, years, leave yourself a message, write a joke so you’d believe it was you. Knowing there was a chance time might fold you here to find it."

Well done, Gansey, Adam thought. Gansey had crafted his explanation to steady Ronan, but Adam, too, felt more reasonable. They were explorers, scientists, anthropologists of historical magic. This was what they wanted.

Blue asked, "Then what does it say after the joke?"

"Arbores loqui latine," Ronan replied. "The trees speak Latin."

It was meaningless, a riddle perhaps, but nonetheless, Adam felt the hairs of his neck crawl. They all glanced at the trees that surrounded them; they were fenced by one thousand different shades of green fastened to a million wind-blown claws.

"And the last line?" Gansey asked. "That last word doesn’t look like Latin."

"Nomine appellant," Ronan read. "Call it by name." He paused. "Cabeswater."

Chapter 26

"Cabeswater," Gansey repeated.

There was something about the word itself that was magical. Cabeswater. Something old and enigmatic, a word that didn’t seem to belong in the New World. Gansey read the Latin on the rock again — the translation seemed obvious, once Ronan had done the heavy lifting — and then, like the others, he looked around at the surrounding trees.

What is this thing you’ve done? he asked himself. Where have you brought them?

"I vote we find water," Blue said. "To make the energy do whatever Ronan said it would do that was better. And then … I think we should say something in Latin."

"It sounds like a plan," Gansey agreed, wondering at the strangeness of this place, that such a nonsensical suggestion should seem so practical. "Should we go back the way we came, or go farther in?"

Noah said, "Farther."

Since Noah rarely expressed an opinion, his word reigned. Setting off again, they doubled back and forth across their own trail in search of water. And as they walked, the leaves fell around them, red and then brown and then gray, until the trees were naked. Frost appeared in the shadows.

"Winter," Adam said.

It was impossible, of course, but again, so was everything that had come before it. It was, Gansey thought, like when he’d driven through the Lake District with Malory. After a while, there had been too much incredible beauty for him to process, and it had become invisible.

It was impossible that it was winter. But it was no more impossible than anything else that had happened.

They had come to a stand of na**d willow trees on a gentle slope, and below them was the twist of a slow-moving, shallow creek. Malory had once told Gansey that where there were willows, there was water. Willows propagated, he said, by dropping seeds in moving water that then carried them downstream, allowing them to root on some distant shore.

"And," Blue added, "there’s water."

Gansey turned to the others. Their breath came in clouds, and they all looked badly underdressed. Even the color of their skin looked wrong: too sun-flushed for this colorless winter air. Tourists from another season. He became aware that he was shivering, but he didn’t know if it was from the newly winter cold or from anticipation.

"Okay," he said to Blue. "What did you want to say in Latin?"

Blue turned to Ronan. "Can you just say hello? That’s polite."

Ronan looked pained; polite was not his style. But he said, "Salve." To Blue, he said, "That actually means be well."

"Super job," she replied. "Ask if they’ll speak with us."

Now Ronan looked even more pained, because this made him look ridiculous, and that was even less his style, but he tilted his head back to the treetops and said, "Loquere tu nobis?"

They all stood quietly. A hiss seemed to be rising, as if a faint, winter breeze rustled the leaves in the trees. But there were no leaves left on the branches to rustle.

"Nothing," Ronan replied. "What did you expect?"

"Quiet," ordered Gansey. Because now the hissing was definitely more than a rustle. Now it had resolved into what sounded distinctly like whispered, dry voices. "Do you hear that?"

Everyone but Noah shook their heads.

"I do," said Noah, to Gansey’s relief.

Gansey said, "Ask them to say it again."

Ronan did.

The hissing rustle came again, and now, it seemed obvious that it was a voice, obvious that it had never been leaves. Plainly, Gansey heard a crackly statement in Latin. He wished, suddenly, that he’d studied harder in class as he repeated the words phonetically to Ronan.

"They say they’ve been speaking to you already, but you haven’t been listening," Ronan said. He rubbed the back of his shaved head. "Gansey, are you messing with me? Do you really hear something?"

"Do you think Gansey’s Latin is that good?" Adam replied tersely. "It was your handwriting on the rock, Ronan, that said they spoke Latin. Shut up."

The trees hissed again, and Gansey repeated them to Ronan. Noah corrected one of the verbs Gansey had misheard.

Ronan’s eyes darted to Blue. "They said they’re happy to see the psychic’s daughter."

"Me!" Blue cried.

The trees hissed a reply and Gansey repeated the words.

"I don’t know what that means," Ronan said. "They’re also happy to once more see — I don’t know what that word is. Greywaren? If it’s Latin, I don’t know it."