The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(57)

Blue blushed immediately. One of her most hidden and persistent fantasies was an impossible one: living in Monmouth. She’d never really be one of the group, she thought, as long as she was living here at 300 Fox Way. She’d never really be one of them as long as she wasn’t an Aglionby student. Which meant she’d never really be one of them as long as she was a girl. The unfairness of it, the wanting, kept her up some nights. She couldn’t believe Noah had guessed her desire so accurately. To cover her embarrassment, she huffed, “And I’d hang out all day with you and Ronan?”

Gleefully, Noah said, “There’s a pool table now! I’m the worst at pool ever! It’s wonderful.” His arm tightened around her shoulders. “D’oh. Incoming.”

A man headed up the sidewalk toward them. He was carefully put together and overwhelmingly … gray. At the same time that Blue appraised this Gray Man, she got the idea that she was also being appraised.

At the end of the moment, they both eyed each other with a sort of mutual decision to not underestimate the other.

“Hello,” he said cordially. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

First of all, the way he phrased it meant that he could see Noah, which not everyone could. Second of all, he was polite in a way that was unlike anything Blue had encountered before. Gansey was polite in a way that squashed the other party smaller. Adam was polite to reassure. And this man was polite in a keen, questioning sort of way. He was polite like tentacles were polite, testing the surface carefully, checking to see how it reacted to his presence.

He was, Blue decided suddenly, very clever. Nothing to be trifled with.

She gestured to her soaked clothing. “This is performance art. We’re reenacting ‘The Little Mermaid.’ Not the Disney version.”

This was her own little tentacle test.

The Gray Man smiled agreeably. “Is he the prince? Do you stab him or do you turn into foam at the end?”

“Foam, of course,” said Blue, enormously gratified.

“I always thought she should have stabbed him,” he mused. “I’m looking for Maura.”

“Ah.” Now it all made sense. This was Mr. Gray. She’d heard his name whispered between Maura, Calla, and Persephone over the past few days. Especially between Calla and Persephone. “You’re the hit man.”

Mr. Gray had the good grace to look efficiently startled. “Oh. And you’re the daughter. Blue.”

“The one and only.” Blue fixed a penetrating gaze on him. “So, do you have a favorite weapon?”

Without missing a beat, he replied, “Opportunity.”

Now she raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Come on. Noah, I’ll be back out in a sec.”

She led the Gray Man inside. As always, new visitors made her over-aware of the house’s unorthodox appearance. It was two houses knitted together, and neither structure had been a palace to begin with. Narrow hallways leaned eagerly toward one another. A stray toilet gurgled constantly. The wood floors were as buckled as the sidewalk out front, as if roots threatened to come between the boards. Some of the walls were painted in vivid purples and blues, and some of them maintained wallpaper from decades before. Faded black-and-white photographs hung beside Klimt prints and old metal scissors. The entire decor was a victim of too much thrift-store shopping and too many strong personalities.

Oddly enough, the Gray Man — a serene spot of neutral color in the middle of the riot — didn’t look out of place. Blue watched him watching his surroundings as they made their way into the bowels of the house. He didn’t seem like the sort of person one could sneak up on.

Again, she thought, Don’t underestimate him.

“Oh!” croaked Jimi. She squeezed her ample mass past the Gray Man. “I’ll get Maura!”

As Blue maneuvered him toward the kitchen, she asked, “What, precisely, is your intention with my mother?”

“That seems very frank,” Mr. Gray said.

She stepped over two small girls (she wasn’t certain who they belonged to) playing with tanks in the middle of the hall and snuck past a sort of possible second cousin carrying two lit candles. The Gray Man lifted his arms above his head to avoid being ignited by the second cousin, who clucked at him.

“Life’s short.”

“And getting shorter every day.”

“So you see my point.”

“I never disputed it.”

Then they were in the kitchen, with all its mugs and half-packaged tea and boxes of essential oils waiting to be mailed and decapitated flowers waiting to be boiled.

Blue pointed to a chair beneath the fake Tiffany lamp. “Sit.”

“I’d rather stand.”

She made a neat rack of teeth at the Gray Man. “Sit.”

The Gray Man sat. He glanced over his shoulder, back down the hall, then back to her. He had those bright, active eyes that Dobermans and blue jays had.

“No one’s going to murder you here.” She handed him a glass of water. “That’s not poisoned.”

“Thanks.” He set it down but didn’t drink it. “My only intentions right now are to ask her to dinner.”

Leaning her butt on the counter, Blue crossed her arms and studied him. She was thinking about her biological father, Artemus. The truth was that Blue had never met him and in fact knew very little about him — little more than his name, Artemus. She felt strangely protective of him, though. She didn’t like to think of him reappearing and finding a usurper in his place. But then again, it had been sixteen years. The likelihood of him coming back was a very narrow one.