Call Down the Hawk (Dreamer, #1)(20)

He walked the labyrinth in to its center, and then he walked it back out, and then he walked it in, and then he walked it back out. He didn’t think, because if he did, he’d think about how somewhere, Adam was explaining himself to his proctor and God knew who else.

He just walked.

He just walked.

He just walked.

If he’d had a car, he would have gotten in it and driven. Where? Anywhere. As fast as possible.

You see how the game gets harder the more pebbles are thrown. The tighter the spiral twists.

Declan called at some point. “I told you to text in the morning. The rules of this were very simple.”

Ronan tested his voice, found it wanting, and then tried it again. It worked this time, even though he did not think it sounded particularly like his own. It said to Declan, “I ruined his dorm.”

There was silence, and then Declan said, “I’m going to call Adam.”

Ronan kept walking the labyrinth. Somewhere someone was playing a single poignant French horn very, very well. It was far more audible than the murmured sounds of the day’s traffic.

He sat in the center of the labyrinth. Put his head down on his legs. Folded his hands over the back of his neck. This was how Adam found him some time later. He sat down behind Ronan so that they were back to back in the center of the maze.

“Declan took the crabs,” Adam said.

Ronan didn’t say anything.

“He told me to blame everything on you,” Adam said.

Ronan didn’t say anything.

“I told them …” Adam hesitated. “I told them you got drunk. I’m sorry, I—”

“Good,” Ronan said. Drunken loser trashes dorm. “Good. It was my fault. I don’t care what they think about me. It’s not fucking important what they think about me. Are you in trouble?”

“Of course.” It was impossible to tell how Adam felt about this without seeing his face. He was at his most precise and remote. “I have to fix it. Fletcher had to vouch that it was you instead of me. And I’m not allowed to have you over again. They made me sign something saying you wouldn’t come on campus.”

The French horn player mourned downward before spiraling up again.

“I’ll pay for it,” Ronan said. His father had left him some money, and he never touched it. What would he spend money on when he could dream anything he needed?

Everything except a life here.

Adam turned around. Ronan turned, too, and they sat facing each other in the center of the labyrinth. Adam wiped one tear from Ronan’s right eye. He showed the finger to Ronan. It glistened damply with the single tear. Then he reached out and wiped the tear from Ronan’s left eye. He showed this finger to Ronan, too.

It was smeared darkly with black.

Nightwash.

“This won’t work, Ronan,” Adam said.

Ronan already knew this. He knew this because he knew it was late enough that he was supposed to be seeing one of the apartments and Declan hadn’t called him again. He knew that meant Declan had canceled the appointments. He knew it was over because Adam had signed a piece of paper saying Ronan wouldn’t visit him on campus. He knew that meant Ronan would return to waiting at the Barns for him.

It felt like sadness was like radiation, like the amount of time between exposures was irrelevant, like you got a badge that eventually got filled up from a lifetime of it, and then it just killed you.

Adam Parrish and the Crying Club.

“We’re still okay,” Adam said. “This isn’t about that.”

Is there any version of you that could come with me to Cambridge?

No.

Adam went on. “I’m not trapped here on campus. I can still come to you on break.”

Ronan watched a leaf skitter along the labyrinth, scuttling effortlessly from outer ring to inner before being joined by several others. They huddled together and shivered in the breeze for a moment before hurrying off somewhere together.

“Tell me to go to school closer to you and I will,” Adam said in a rush, the words piled together. “Just say it.”

Ronan pressed the heel of his hand against his eye, checking for nightwash, but it wasn’t bad yet. “I’m not that big of an asshole.”

“Oh, you are,” Adam said, trying for humor. Failing. “Just not about that.”

The French horn had gone silent and all that was left was the sound of the city that would slowly kill Ronan if he let it. He stood up.

It was over.

You are made of dreams and this world is not for you.





11

7:07 A.M.: WAKE UP, ASSHOLE. YOU’RE ALIVE.

Ronan was awake.

He stared at a list written in dark, cramped handwriting and taped on the slanted plaster wall above his childhood bed at the Barns. After he had failed to answer any texts or calls for four days post-Cambridge, Declan had paid a surprise visit and found the middle Lynch brother in bed eating expired baked beans in the same jeans he’d been wearing on the road trip.

You need a routine, Declan had demanded.

I have a routine.

I thought you said you never lied.

7:15 A.M.: GET DRESSED AND SHAVE THAT BEAUTIFUL BALD HEAD.

It had been a long time since Ronan had gotten a proper Declan lecture. After their father died, Declan had become legally responsible for his brothers until they hit eighteen. He’d hectored Ronan constantly: Don’t skip class, Ronan. Don’t get another ticket, Ronan. Don’t stay out late with Gansey, Ronan. Don’t wear dirty socks twice in a row, Ronan. Don’t swear, Ronan. Don’t drink yourself into oblivion, Ronan. Don’t hang out with those using losers, Ronan. Don’t kill yourself, Ronan. Don’t use a double Windsor knot with that collar, Ronan.