The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(50)

A fellow academic had once asked the Gray Man: “Why Anglo-Saxon history?” At the time it had struck the Gray Man as a foolish and unanswerable question. The things that drew him to that time period were surely unconscious and many-headed, diffused through his blood from a lifetime of influences. One might as easily ask him why he preferred to wear gray, why he disliked gravy of all sorts, why he loved the seventies, why he was so fascinated by brothers when he couldn’t seem to succeed at being one himself. He’d told the academic that guns had made history boring, which he knew was a lie even as he said it, and then he’d extricated himself from the conversation. Of course he thought of the true answer later, but it was too late then.

It was this: Alfred the Great. Alfred became king during one of the armpits of English history. There was no England, really, not back then. Just small kingdoms with bad teeth and abbreviated tempers. Life was, as the old saying went, nasty, brutish, short. When the Vikings came tearing onto the island, the kingdoms didn’t stand a chance. But Alfred stepped in to unite them. He made them a brotherhood, pushed out the Vikings. He’d promoted literacy and the translation of important books. Encouraged the poets and the artists and writers. He’d ushered in a renaissance before the Italians had ever considered the concept.

He was one man, but he’d changed Anglo-Saxon England forever. He imposed order and honor, and under that crushed-down grass of principle, the flower of poetry and civility had burst through.

What a hero, the Gray Man thought. Another Arthur.

His attention snapped up as Ronan Lynch stepped out of the old factory. He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colors. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.

Ronan opened the driver’s side door of the charcoal BMW hard enough that the car shook, then he threw himself in hard enough that the car kept shaking, and then he slammed the door hard enough that the car shook yet more. And then he left with enough speed to make the tires squeal.

“Hm,” said the Gray Man, already preferring this Lynch brother to the last.

The rental truck pulled out with rather more care than the BMW had and headed down the street in the same direction. Then, although the lot was empty, the Gray Man waited. Sure enough, the white Mitsubishi he’d spotted before pulled in, the bass from its stereo slowly liquefying the pavement beneath it. A kid climbed out, carrying a plastic baggie full of something like business cards. He was the sort the Gray Man preferred to steer clear of; he hummed with a restless, unpredictable energy. The Gray Man didn’t mind dangerous people, but he preferred sober dangerous people. He watched the kid enter the factory and return with only an empty bag. The Mitsubishi tore off, tires squalling.

Now the Gray Man turned off the Kinks, walked across the street, and climbed the stairs to the second-floor apartment. On the landing, he discovered the contents of Mitsubishi Boy’s bag: a pile of identical Virginia driver’s licenses. Each featured a sullen photograph of Ronan Lynch beside a birth date that would’ve had him a few months away from celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday. Aside from the clearly facetious birth date, they were very good forgeries. The Gray Man held one up to the light coming through the broken window. Its maker had done a tidy job of replicating the most difficult part, the hologram. The Gray Man was impressed.

He left the licenses lying outside the door and broke into Monmouth Manufacturing. He was careful about it. One could easily break a lock. One could not easily unbreak it. As he picked the lock, he dialed his phone and propped it on his shoulder. It only took a moment for someone to pick up.

“Oh, it’s you,” Maura Sargent said. “King of swords.”

“And it’s you. The sword in my spine. I seem to have lost my wallet somewhere.” The Gray Man let the compromised door fall open. A smell of musty paper and mint rolled around him. Dust motes played over a thousand books; this wasn’t quite what he’d expected. “When you were vacuuming under Calla, did you happen to see anything?”

“Vacuuming!” Maura said. “I’ll look. Oh. Look at that. There is a wallet in the couch. I imagine you’ll want to pick it up. How’s work?”

“I’d love to chat about it.” The Gray Man turned the lock behind himself. If the boys came back for something, he’d have a few seconds to make a plan of action. “Face-to-face.”

“You’re quite creepy.”

“I imagine you like creepy men.”

“Probably true,” Maura admitted. “Mysterious, possibly. Creepy is a very strong word.”

The Gray Man moved among the cluttered parts of Gansey’s quest. He pulled down a map rolled on the wall. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for yet.

“You could give me a reading.” He smiled faintly as he said it, paging through a book on medieval weaponry that he also owned.

Maura heard the smile in his voice. “I most certainly cannot. Neither of us want that, I can promise.”

“Are you sure? I could read you more poetry when you’re done. I know a lot of poetry.”

Maura clucked. “That’s Calla’s thing.”

“And what is your thing?” The Gray Man poked at a stack of books on the Welsh language. He was so very charmed by all of these things of Richard Gansey’s. He wasn’t sure, though, that Gansey understood just how well Glendower would be hidden. History was always buried deep, even when you know where to look. And it was hard to excavate it without damaging it. Brushes and cotton swabs, not chisels and pickaxes. Slow work. You had to like doing it.