The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(94)

White, plastic, lenses dark as hell. Joseph Kavinsky’s — or maybe a copy. Who was to say what was real anymore?

Ronan put the white sunglasses onto Gansey’s face and regarded him once more. His face went somber for half a second, and then it dissolved into an absolutely wonderful and fearless laugh. The old Ronan Lynch’s laugh. No, it was better than that one, because this new one had just a hint of darkness beneath it. This Ronan knew there was crap in the world, but he was laughing anyway.

Gansey couldn’t help laughing along, rather more breathless. Somehow he had gone from such a terrible place to such a joyful one. He wasn’t sure that the feeling would be so profound if he hadn’t braced every bone in his body for an argument with Ronan. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, tell me.”

Ronan told him.

“Kavinsky?”

Ronan explained.

Gansey rested his cheek against the hot steering wheel. That, too, was comforting. He should have never gone without this car. He was never getting out of it again.

Joseph Kavinsky. Unbelievable.

“And what’s wrong with Cabeswater?”

Ronan shielded his eyes. “Me. Well, Kavinsky, actually. We’re taking all the energy from the line when we dream.”

“Solution?”

“Stop Kavinsky.”

They eyed each other.

“I don’t suppose,” Gansey said slowly, “that we could just ask him nicely.”

“Hey, Churchill tried to negotiate with Hitler.”

Gansey frowned. “Did he?”

“Probably.”

Letting out a huge breath, Gansey closed his eyes and let the steering wheel cook his face. This was home: Henrietta, the Pig, Ronan. Nearly. His thoughts darted toward Adam, toward Blue, and rabbited away.

“How was your party, man?” Ronan asked, kicking Gansey’s knee through the open door. “How’d Parrish do?”

Gansey opened his eyes. “Oh, he brought down the house.”





At about the same time that Gansey was donning a pair of white sunglasses, Blue biked two neighborhoods over from her house. She carried the Camaro wheel, the shield boss, and a small pink switchblade.

She was decidedly uncomfortable with the switchblade. Although she very much liked the idea of it — Blue Sargent, desperado; Blue Sargent, superhero; Blue Sargent, badass — she suspected that the only thing she would cut the first time she opened it was herself. But Maura had insisted.

“Switchblades are illegal,” Blue protested.

“So’s crime,” Maura replied.

Crime was all the papers — yes, papers, plural, because against all reason, Henrietta had two of them — could talk about. All over town, increasingly fearful citizens reported break-ins. The accounts were conflicting, however — some said they had seen a single man, others two men, and still others said gangs of five or six.

“That means none of them are true,” Blue said scathingly. She was skeptical of mainstream journalism.

“Or all of them,” Maura replied.

“Did your hit-man boyfriend tell you that?”

Maura said, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

By the time Blue parked her bike outside the rambler where Calla took boxing lessons, she was feeling sticky and unappealing. The shaded lawn had no effect at all as she trudged across it to the door and rang the bell with her elbow.

“Hello, lady,” said Mike, the enormous man who taught Calla. He was as wide as Blue was tall — which, in all fairness, was not very wide. “Is that off a Corvette?”

Blue readjusted the pitted wheel beneath her arm. “Camaro.”

“What year?”

“Uh, 1973.”

“Ooh. Big block? 350?”

“Sure?”

“Nice, lady! Where’s the rest of it?”

“Out having a grand old time without me. Is Calla still here?”

Mike opened the door wider to admit Blue. “She’s just cooling down in the basement.”

Blue found Calla lying on the worn gray carpet in the basement, a generous and out-of-breath mountain of psychic. There were an astonishing number of punching bags hanging and stacked. Blue placed the Camaro wheel on Calla’s heaving stomach.

“Do your magic trick,” she ordered.

“How rude!” But Calla reached up to fold her hands over the top of the pocked metal. Her eyes were closed, so she couldn’t know what it was, but she said, “He’s not alone when he leaves the car behind.”

There was something chilling about the phrase. Leaves behind. It could have just meant “parked the car.” But it didn’t sound like that when Calla said it. It sounded like a synonym for abandon. And it seemed like it would take something pretty momentous to make Gansey abandon the Pig.

“When does it happen?”

“It already has,” Calla replied. Her eyes opened and fixed on Blue. “And it hasn’t yet. Time’s circular, chicken. We use the same parts of it over and over. Some of us more than others.”

“Wouldn’t we remember that?”

“I said time was circular,” Calla replied. “I didn’t say memories were.”

“You’re being creepy,” Blue said. “Maybe you mean to be, but in case you’re just being accidentally creepy, I thought I’d let you know.”