Gansey took a moment to catch his breath before asking, “And what’s that sound in the background?”
“Let me take a gander,” Malory replied. There was a crackling sound, and then his voice, rather louder than before, said, “They’re auctioning off some birds.”
“What sort? Please tell me German Beauty Homers.”
Adam, completely undone, bit his hand. Small gasps still managed to escape.
“Pigmy Pouters,” Malory replied. “Feisty ones!”
Gansey mouthed Blue at Adam. Adam let out a little wail of helpless laughter.
“You never took me to any pigeon shows while I was there,” Gansey said reproachfully.
“We had other tasks at hand, Gansey!” Malory said. “Such as now. This is what I think about your ley line. I think your forest is like an apparition, if I had to guess about these things. Without a solid source of energy, an apparition can only flicker.”
“But we woke the ley line,” replied Gansey. “It’s so strong sometimes that it blows out the transformers here.”
“Ah, but you said that the electricity goes out as well, did you not?”
Gansey grudgingly agreed. And now he was thinking of Noah vanishing in the Dollar City.
“So you see how your forest might be starved as well as over-fed. Good heavens, man, would you watch where you’re carrying that thing! Sorry! I should think you are! I’d be sorry, too, if I had to claim that monstrosity as my own! That sausage neck … excuse you!” There was a scuffle, and then Malory said, “I apologize, Gansey. Some people! I should think you need to find out how to stabilize your line. The surges I’d expect, but certainly not the outages.”
“Any ideas?”
“I’ve had quite a lot of ideas in just the last minute,” Malory said. “I should like to see this line of yours. Are you opposed, one day … ?”
“You’re welcome anytime,” Gansey said, and meant it. For all his faults, Malory was still Gansey’s oldest ally. He had earned it.
“Excellent, excellent. Now, if you don’t mind,” Malory said, “I have just spotted a pair of Shield Croppers.”
They exchanged good-byes. Gansey turned his eyes to Adam, who looked more like himself than he had in ages. He silently vowed to do whatever it took to keep him that way. “Well. I don’t know how helpful that was.”
Adam said, “We found out German Beauty Homers look like bloody puffins.”
The very first thing Ronan did after Gansey left was retrieve the keys to the Camaro. He had no immediate plan other than to see if they actually fit into the lock.
In the summer sun, the Pig glistened like a gem in the scrubby grass and gravel. Ronan lay a hand on the rear panel and slid his palm lightly up over the roof. Even that felt illicit; this car was so much Gansey’s that it seemed as if, somewhere, Gansey must be able to feel this minor transgression. When Ronan lifted his hand, it was dusted green. He was struck by the details of the moment. This was something he needed to remember, when he dreamt. This feeling right here: heart thudding, pollen sticky on his fingertips, July pricking sweat at his breastbone, the smell of gasoline and someone else’s charcoal grill. Every blade of grass was picked out in sharp detail. If Ronan could dream like this moment felt, he could take anything out. He could take this whole goddamn car out.
He put the key in the door.
It fit.
He turned it.
The lock popped up.
A smile was working over his mouth, though there was no one to see it. Especially because there was no one to see it.
Ronan sank into the driver’s seat. The vinyl was infernally hot in the sun, but he just filed that information away. It was yet another sensation that made the moment real instead of a dream. Slowly, he ran a finger around the thin steering wheel, rested his palm on the slick gearshift.
Gansey’s heart would stop if he saw Ronan Lynch right here.
Unless the key didn’t work in the ignition.
Ronan put his feet on the clutch and brake, inserted the key, and turned it.
The engine roared to life.
Ronan grinned.
On cue, his phone buzzed as a text message came in. He slid it out of his pocket. Kavinsky.
my new wheels will blow you away. see you tonite @ 11.
An hour later, Noah let Blue into Monmouth Manufacturing. The sun had made the space vast and musty and lovely. The warm, trapped air was scented with old wood and mint and ten-thousand pages about Glendower. Although Gansey had been gone only hours, it suddenly seemed longer, like this was all that was left of him.
“Where’s Ronan?” she whispered as Noah closed the door behind her.
“Making trouble,” Noah whispered back. It was strange to be here without anyone else: speaking felt a little forbidden. “Nothing we can do anything about.”
“Are you sure?” Blue murmured. “I can do a lot of things.”
“Not about this.”
She hesitated by the door. It felt like trespassing without Gansey or Ronan here. What she wanted was to somehow stuff all of Monmouth Manufacturing inside her head and keep it there. She was struck with anxious longing.
Noah held his hand out. She accepted it — it was bone-cold, as always — and together they turned to face the huge room. Noah took a deep breath as if they were preparing to explore the jungle instead of stepping deeper into Monmouth Manufacturing.
It seemed bigger with just the two of them there. The cobwebbed ceiling soared, dust motes making mobiles overhead. They turned their heads sideways and read the titles of the books aloud. Blue peered at Henrietta through the telescope. Noah daringly reattached one of the broken miniature roofs on Gansey’s scale town. They went through the fridge tucked in the bathroom. Blue selected a soda. Noah took a plastic spoon. He chewed on it as Blue fed Chainsaw a leftover hamburger. They closed Ronan’s door — if Gansey still managed to inhabit the rest of the apartment, Ronan’s presence was still decidedly pervasive in his room. Noah showed Blue his room. They jumped on his perfectly made bed and then they played a bad game of pool. Noah lounged on the new sofa while Blue persuaded the old record player to play an LP too clever to interest either of them. They opened all of the drawers on the desk in the main room. One of Gansey’s EpiPens bounced against the interior of the topmost drawer as Blue withdrew a fancy pen. She copied Gansey’s blocky handwriting onto a Nino’s receipt as Noah put on a preppy sweater he’d found balled under the desk. She ate a mint leaf and breathed on Noah’s face.
Crouching, they crab-walked along the aerial printout Gansey had spread the length of the room. He’d jotted enigmatic notes to himself all along the margin of it. Some of them were coordinates. Some of them were explanations of topography. Some of them were Beatles lyrics.
Finally, they regarded Gansey’s bed, which was just a barely made mattress and box spring on a metal stand. It sat in a square of sunlight in the middle of the room, turned at an angle as if it had been driven into the building. Without any particular discussion, they curled on top of the blanket, each taking one of Gansey’s pillows. It felt illicit and drowsy. Only inches away, Noah blinked sleepily at her. Blue crumpled the edge of the sheet against her nose. It smelled like mint and wheatgrass, which was to say, like Gansey.
As they baked in the sunlight, she let herself think it: I have a crush on Richard Gansey.
In a way, it was easier than pretending otherwise. She couldn’t do anything about it, of course, but letting herself think it was like popping a blister.
Of course, the opposite truth also seemed self-evident.
I don’t have a crush on Adam Parrish.
She sighed.
Noah, his voice muffled, said, “Sometimes I pretend I’m like him.”
“What part?”