The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(39)

“Are you murdered?” Ronan asked Gansey. A scratch came down his temple and skipped across his eyebrow to his cheek. Watch your eyes.

A soft probe with Gansey’s fingertips revealed that the actual wound under his chin was quite small. The memory of being caught on the claw wouldn’t soon leave him though. He felt perilously undone, like he needed to hold on to something or be washed away. He kept his voice even. “I think so. Is it dead?”

“If it’s not,” Ronan said, “it’s a worse nightmare than I thought.”

Now Gansey did have to sit down, very slowly, on the edge of the torn-apart bedsheets. Because that thing had been impossible. The plane and the puzzle box, both inanimate objects, had been far easier to accept. Even Chainsaw, in all respects an ordinary raven apart from her origin, was easier to take in.

Ronan watched Gansey over the body of the creature — it seemed even larger in its death — and his expression was as unguarded as Gansey had ever seen it. He was being made to understand that this, all of it, was a confession. A look into who Ronan really had been the entire time he had known him.

What a world of wonders and horrors, and Glendower only one of them.

Gansey finally said, “Seneca. That’s who said that, right?”

While his body had been fighting a nightmare, his subconscious had been battling the Latin Ronan had greeted him with.

Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit; occidentis telum est.

Ronan’s smile was sharp and hooked as one of the creature’s claws. “‘A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.’”

“I can’t believe Noah didn’t stick around to help.”

“Sure you can. Never trust the dead.”

Shaking his head, Gansey pointed at the scabs he had seen on Ronan’s arm during the fight. “Your arm. Is that from fighting with it while I was in the Pig?”

Ronan shook his head slowly. In the other room, Chainsaw was making anxious noises, worried over the fate of him. “Kerah?”

“There was another one,” he said. “It got away.”





Jane, how do you feel about doing something slightly illegal and definitely distasteful?” Gansey asked.

Ronan’s back was already sticky with the heat. The bird man’s corpse was in the BMW’s trunk, and undoubtedly a dreadful scientific process was happening to it. Ronan was certain it was a process that was going to only get more odiferous as the day grew warmer.

“It depends on if it involves a helicopter,” Blue replied, standing in the doorway of 300 Fox Way. She scratched her calf with her bare foot. She wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one.

Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps.

And he had other things on his mind. Nerves tingled in his fingers.

Gansey shrugged. “No helicopters. This time.”

“Is this about Cabeswater?”

“No,” Gansey said sadly.

She looked past them to the BMW. “Why is there a bungee cord around the trunk?”

Although Ronan reckoned the Pig deserved it, Gansey had refused to put the corpse in the Camaro. “It’s a long story. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I guess I’ve never seen you in a T-shirt before. Or jeans.”

Because Blue had been staring at Gansey in a way that was more conspicuous for the fact that she was trying to be inconspicuous about it. It was equal parts startled and impressed. It was true that Gansey rarely wore jeans and a T-shirt, preferring collared shirts and cargo pants if he wasn’t in a tie. And it was true he wore them well; the T-shirt hung on his shoulders in a way that revealed all kinds of pleasant nooks and corners that a button-down usually hid. But Ronan suspected that Blue was most shocked by how it made Gansey look like a boy, for once, something like one of them.

“It’s for the distasteful thing,” Gansey said. He plucked at the T-shirt with deprecating fingers. “I’m rather slovenly at the moment, I know.”

Blue concurred, “Yes, slovenly, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Ronan, I see that you’re dressed slovenly as well.”

This was meant to be mocking, as Ronan was in a fairly typical Ronan getup of jeans and black tank.

“Shall I get into something more slovenly, too?” she asked.

“At least put shoes on,” Gansey replied somberly. “And a hat, if you must. It looks like rain.”

“Tut tut,” Blue said, glancing up to verify. But the sky was hidden by the leafy trees of her neighborhood. “Where’s Adam?”

“Picking him up next.”

“Where’s Noah?”

Ronan said, “Same place Cabeswater is.”

Gansey winced.

“Nice, Ronan,” Blue said, annoyed. She left the door hanging open as she retreated into the house, calling, “Mom! I’m going with the boys to … do … something!”

As they waited, Gansey turned to Ronan. “Let me be very clear: If there was any other place we could bury this thing without fear of it being discovered, we’d be going there instead. I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to the Barns, and I wish you wouldn’t come with us in any case. I want it to be on record.”

“WHAT SORT OF SOMETHING?” This was Maura, from inside the house.