The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(56)

“No,” the Gray Man said. “They won’t be.”

“You’re good,” Greenmantle said. “It’s why you’re the only one.”

“Yes,” the Gray Man agreed. “I certainly am. Would you say that this thing is a box?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that, because I don’t know. Would you say that?”

“No. Probably not.”

“Why did you ask, then?”

“If it was a box, I could stop looking at things that weren’t boxes.”

“If I’d thought it was a box, I would’ve told you to look for a box. Would I say it’s a box. Why do you have to be so damn mysterious all the time? Do you get off on it? You want me thinking about boxes now? Because I am. I’ll look it up. I’ll see what I can do.”

Hanging up, the Gray Man assessed the scene. In a fortunate world, the two bodies before him would lay undiscovered for years, picked at by animals and worn away by the weather. But in a world where lovebirds thought they caught a strange smell or poachers tripped on leg bones or buzzards inconveniently circled for days at a time, all there would be to the scene would be two men with mud-clotted shoes and defensive DNA clawed beneath their fingernails. In a way, two bodies made it easier. Made the story simpler. Two men up to no good on private property. A dispute between them. A fight that got out of hand.

One for loneliness. Two for a battle.

The Gray Man frowned and checked his watch. Hopefully, these were the only bodies he’d have to bury in Henrietta, but one could never say.





When Blue arrived home in her soaking-wet clothing, Noah was kneeling in the tiny, shaded front yard of 300 Fox Way. Orla breezed right inside without saying hello to him. As a psychic, she probably saw him, but as Orla, she didn’t care. Blue stopped, though. She was pleased he was there. She rearranged the Camaro wheel under her arm and wiped damp hair off her forehead.

“Hey, Noah.”

He was too busy being ghostly to attend to her, however.

Currently, he was engaged in one of his creepiest activities: reenacting his own death. He glanced around the tiny yard as if appraising the forest glen containing only himself and his friend Barrington Whelk. Then he let out a terrible, mangled cry as he was struck from behind by an invisible skateboard. He made no sound when he was hit again, but his body jerked convincingly. Blue tried not to look as he bucked a few more times before falling to the ground. His head jerked; his legs bicycled.

Blue took a deep, uneven breath. Though she had seen him do it four or five times now, it was always unsettling. Eleven minutes. That was how long the entire homicidal portrait lasted: one boy’s life destroyed in less time than it took to cook a hamburger. The last six minutes, the ones that took place after Noah had first fallen but before he actually died, were excruciating. Blue considered herself a fairly steadfast, sensible girl, but no matter how many times she heard his torn-up breath seizing in his throat, she felt a little teary.

Between the twisted roots of the front yard, Noah’s body jerked and stilled, finally dead. Again.

Gently, she asked, “Noah?”

He was on the ground and then, just like that, he was standing beside her. It was like a dream, where the middle part was cut out, the getting from point A to point B.

It was another of his creepy things.

“Blue!” he said, and patted her damp hair.

She hugged him tightly; he was chilly against her damp clothing. She was always so worried he wouldn’t snap out of it at the end.

“Why do you do that?” she demanded.

Noah had reverted to his normal, safe self. The only evidence of his true nature was the ever-present smudge on his cheek where the bone had been smashed in. Otherwise he was once again slouched, mild, and eternally dressed in his Aglionby uniform.

He looked vaguely bewildered and pleased to have a girl clinging to him. “That?”

“What you did. Just now.”

He shrugged, formless and amiable. “I wasn’t here.”

But you were, Noah, she thought. But whatever part of Noah that still existed to pour thoughts and memories into this form mercifully disappeared for the eleven minutes of his death. She wasn’t sure if his amnesia over the whole thing made it more or less creepy.

“Ah, Noah.”

He draped an arm over her shoulders, too cold and weird himself to notice that she was also damp and cold. They wandered to the door like that, a pretzel of dead boy and not-psychic girl.

Of course, he wouldn’t come in. Blue suspected he couldn’t. Ghosts and psychics competed for the same power source, and in an energy showdown between Noah and Calla, there was no doubt in Blue’s mind who would come out the victor. She would have asked Noah to confirm this, but he was notoriously disinterested in the details of his afterlife. (Once, Gansey had tersely asked, “Don’t you care how it is that you’re still here?” and Noah had answered with remarkable acumen, “Do you care how your kidneys work?”) “You aren’t going to D.C., are you?” Noah asked with some anxiety.

“Nope.” She’d meant to just say it with no inflection whatsoever, but in truth, she felt curiously bereft at the idea of Gansey and Adam both leaving town. She felt, actually, exactly like Noah sounded.

Daringly, Noah offered, “I’ll let you into Monmouth.”