The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(29)

“‘Of all people’!” Gansey echoed. “What sort of all people am I?”

She had no idea, now. Flustered, she replied, “You’re not my — my — grandmother, or something.”

“You’d talk about this with your grandmother? I cannot possibly imagine discussing my dating life with mine. She’s a lovely woman, I suppose. If you like them bald and racist.” He glanced around the kitchen, as if he were looking for someone. “Where is yours, anyway? Isn’t every female relative of yours in this house somewhere?”

Blue whispered furiously, “Don’t be un — un —”

“Couth? Uncouth?”

“Disrespectful! My grandmothers are both dead.”

“Well, Jesus. What did they die of?”

“Mom always said ‘meddling.’”

Gansey completely forgot they were being secretive and let out a tremendous laugh. It was a powerful thing, that laugh. He only did it once, but his eyes remained shaped like it.

Something inside her did a complicated tug.

Oh no! she thought. But then she calmed herself. Richard C. Gansey III has a nice mouth. Now I know he has nice eyes when he laughs, too. This still isn’t love.

She also thought: Adam. Remember Adam.

“It makes sense that there’s a family history for your condition,” he said. “Do you eat all of the men in the family? Where do they go? Does this house have a basement?”

Blue stood up. “It’s like boot camp. They can’t hack it. Poor things.”

“Poor me,” he said.

“Yup! Wait here.” She was a little relieved to leave him at the table; her pulse felt like she’d been running. She found Maura and Calla still in the hall, conferring in low voices. She told her mother, “Look. We’re definitely all going to Cabeswater. This afternoon, when Ronan’s done. That’s the plan. We’re sticking to the plan.”

Maura appeared a lot less distressed by this statement than Blue had feared. In fact, she didn’t look very distressed at all.

“Why are you telling me?” Maura asked. “Why is your face so red?”

“Because you’re my mother. Because you’re an authority figure. Because you’re supposed to inform people of your travel plans when you’re hiking on dangerous trails. This is what my face always looks like.”

“Hm,” said Maura.

“Hm,” said Calla.

Suspiciously, Blue asked, “You’re not going to tell me not to go?”

“Not this time.”

“No point,” Calla agreed.

“Also, there’s a scrying bowl in the attic,” Blue said.

Her mother peered into the reading room. “No, there’s not.”

Blue insisted, “Someone’s been using it.”

“No, they haven’t.”

With an edge to her voice, Blue said, “You can’t just say it’s not there and no one’s using it. Because I’m not an infant and I use my own eyes and brain all the time.”

“What do you want me to tell you, then?” Maura asked.

“The truth. I just told you the truth.”

“She did!” Gansey called from the kitchen.

“Shut up!” Blue and Calla said at once.

Maura lifted a hand. “Fine. I used it.”

“For what?”

Calla said, “To look for Butternut.”

My father! Blue probably shouldn’t have been surprised — Neeve had been asked there to find her father, and although Neeve was gone, the mystery of her father’s whereabouts remained. “I thought you said scrying was a bad idea.”

“It’s like vodka,” Calla said. “It really depends on who’s doing it.” With her spoon poised over her pudding cup, she peered into the other room, just as Maura had.

Blue craned her neck to see what they were looking at. It was just Adam. He sat in the reading room by himself, the diffuse morning light rendering him soft and dusty. He had removed one of the tarot decks from its bag and lined all of the cards faceup in three long rows. Now he leaned on the table and studied the image on each, one at a time, shuffling on his elbows to the next when he was through. He looked nothing like the Adam who’d lost his temper and everything like the Adam she had first met. That was what was frightening, though — there’d been no warning.

Maura frowned. In a low voice, she said, “I think I need to have a conversation with that boy.”

“Someone does,” Calla replied, heading up the stairs. Each stair groaned a protest for which she punished the next with a stomp. “Not me. I’ve outgrown train wrecks.”

Blue, alarmed, said, “Is he a train wreck?”

Her mother clucked her tongue. “Calla likes drama. Train wreck! When a train takes a long time to go off the tracks, I don’t like to call it a wreck. I like to call it a derailment.”

From upstairs, Blue heard Calla’s delighted cackle.

“I hate both of you,” Blue said as her mother laughed and galloped up the stairs to join Calla. “You’re supposed to use your powers for good, you know!”

After a moment, Adam said to her, without lifting his eyes, “I could hear y’all, you know.”