The Raven Boys

Likewise, Whelk couldn’t be certain they were headed toward the ley line, but from the amount of time Neeve had spent perusing the journal before setting off down the road, he suspected it was a good guess. Whelk was not much for postulation — but he thought his fate was probably meant to be the same as Czerny’s, seven years earlier.

A ritual death, then. A sacrifice, with his blood seeping down through the earth until it reached the sleeping ley line below. Rubbing his tied wrists against each other, he turned his head toward Neeve, who held the wheel with one hand as she ate crackers and hummus with the other. To add insult to injury, she was listening to some kind of trance nature sounds CD on his car’s radio. Perhaps preparing herself for the ritual.

His death on the ley line would, Whelk thought, have a sort of circularity to it.

But Whelk didn’t care for circularity. He cared for his lost car, his lost respect. He cared for the ability to sleep at night. He cared for languages dead long enough that they wouldn’t change on him. He cared for the guacamole his parents’ long-gone chef used to make.

Also, Neeve hadn’t tied him tightly enough.

Chapter 41

After leaving Monmouth Manufacturing, Blue returned home and retreated to the far side of the beech in the backyard to try to do homework. But she found herself spending less time solving for x and more time solving for Noah or Gansey or Adam. She’d given up and leaned back by the time Adam appeared. He stepped into the dim green shadow of the tree from the house side.

"Persephone said you were out here." He just hung there at the edge of the shadow.

Blue thought about saying I’m so sorry about your dad, but instead she just stretched out a hand toward him. Adam gave an unsteady sigh of the sort that she could see from six feet away. Wordlessly, he sat beside her and then laid his head on her lap, his face in his arms.

Startled, Blue didn’t immediately react, other than to glance over her shoulder to make certain that the tree hid them from the house. She felt a little like she’d been approached by a wild animal, and she was at once flattered by its trust and worried that she’d scare it away. After a moment, she carefully stroked a few fine, dusty strands of his hair while she looked at the back of his neck. It made her chest hum to touch him and smell the dust-and-oil scent of him.

"Your hair is the color of dirt," she said.

"It knows where it came from."

"That’s funny," Blue noted, "because then mine should be that color, too."

His shoulders moved in response. After a moment, he said, "Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll never really understand me."

She ran a finger along the back of his ear. It felt dangerous and thrilling, but not as dangerous and thrilling as it would have been to touch him while he was looking at her.

"I’m only going to say this once, and then I’m going to be done with it," she said. "But I think you’re awfully brave."

He was quiet for a long, long moment. A car whirred through the neighborhood. The wind moved through the beech leaves, turning them upside down in a way that meant rain later.

Without lifting his head, Adam said, "I’d like to kiss you now, Blue, young or not."

Blue’s fingers stopped moving.

"I don’t want to hurt you," she said.

He pulled himself free of her, sitting just a few inches away. His expression was bleak, nothing like when he’d wanted to kiss her before. "I’m already all hurt up."

Blue didn’t think this was really about kissing her, and that made her cheeks burn. It wasn’t supposed to be a kiss at all, but if it had, it definitely shouldn’t be like this. She said, "There’s still worse than what you’ve got."

Something about this made him swallow and turn his face away. His hands were limp in his lap. If I’d been anybody else in the world, she thought, this would’ve been my first kiss. She wondered what it would’ve been like to kiss this hungry, desolate boy.

Adam’s eyes moved, following the shifting light through the leaves above. He didn’t look at her when he said, "I don’t remember how your mother said I was supposed to solve my problem. At the reading. The choice I couldn’t make."

Blue sighed. This was what all this was really about, and she had known it all along, even if he hadn’t. "‘Make a third option,’ she said. Next time you should bring a notebook."

"I don’t remember her saying the part about the notebook."

"That’s because it was me saying that part, right now. Next time you get your cards read, take notes. That way you can compare it to what actually happens and you’ll know if the psychic is a good one."

Now he looked at her, but she wasn’t sure if he was really looking at her. "I’ll do that."

"I’ll save you the trouble this time, though," Blue added, tilting her head back as he climbed to his feet. Her fingers and skin longed for the boy she’d held hands with days before, but he didn’t seem to be the boy standing before her. "My mother’s a good one."

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he rubbed his cheek on his shoulder. "So you think I should listen to her?"

"No, you should listen to me."

Adam’s hastily constructed smile was thin enough to break. "And what do you say?"

Blue was suddenly afraid for him. "Keep being brave."

There was blood everywhere.

Are you happy now, Adam? Ronan snarled. He knelt beside Gansey, who convulsed in the dirt. Blue stared at Adam, and the horror in her face was the worst thing. It was his fault. Ronan’s face was wild with loss. Is this what you wanted?

At first, when Adam opened his eyes from the gory dream, his limbs tingling from the adrenaline of it, he wasn’t sure where he was. He felt like he levitated; the space around him was all wrong, too little light, too much space overhead, no sound of his breath coming back at him from the walls.

Then he remembered where he was, in Noah’s room with its close walls and soaring ceilings. A new wave of misery washed over him, and he could identify its source very precisely: homesickness. For uncountable minutes, Adam lay there awake, reasoning with himself. Logically, Adam knew that he had nothing to miss, that he effectively had Stockholm syndrome, identifying with his captors, considering it a kindness when his father didn’t hit him. Objectively, he knew that he was abused. He knew the damage went deeper than any bruise he’d ever worn to school. He could endlessly dissect his reactions, doubt his emotions, wonder if he, too, would grow up to hit his own kid.