That night, after Gansey had gone to meet Blue, Ronan retrieved one of Kavinsky’s green pills from his still-unwashed pair of jeans and returned to bed. Propped up in the corner, he stretched out his hand to Chainsaw, but she ignored him. She had stolen a cheese cracker and now was very busily stacking things on top of it to make sure Ronan would never take it back. Although she kept glancing back at his outstretched hand, she pretended not to see it as she added a bottle cap, an envelope, and a sock to the pile hiding the cracker.
“Chainsaw,” he said. Not sharply, but like he meant it. Recognizing his tone, she soared to the bed. She didn’t generally enjoy petting, but she turned her head left and right as Ronan softly traced the small feathers on either side of her beak. How much energy had it taken from the ley line to create her? he wondered. Was it more to take out a person? A car?
Ronan’s phone buzzed. He tilted it to read the incoming text: your mom calls me after we spend the day together
Ronan let the phone fall back to the bedspread. Ordinarily, seeing Kavinsky’s name light up his phone gave him a strange sense of urgency, but not tonight. Not after spending so many hours with him. Not after dreaming the Camaro. He needed to process all of this first.
ask me what my first dream was
Chainsaw pecked irritably at the buzzing phone. She’d learned a lot from Ronan. He rolled the green pill in his hand. He wouldn’t take anything out of his dreams tonight. Not knowing what they were doing to the ley line. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t still choose what to dream of.
my favorite forgery is Prokopenko
Ronan put the pill back in his pocket. He felt warm and sleepy and just — fine. For once, he felt fine. Sleep didn’t feel like a weapon tucked inside his brain. He knew he could choose to dream of the Barns now, if he tried, but he didn’t want to dream of something that existed in this world.
I’m going to eat you alive man
Ronan closed his eyes. He thought: My father. My father. My father.
And when he opened his eyes again, the old trees roamed upward all around him. The sky was black and star-full overhead. Everything smelled of hickory smoke and boxwood, grass seed and lemon cleaner.
And there was his father, sitting in the charcoal BMW he had dreamt all those years ago. He was an image of Ronan, and also of Declan, and also of Matthew. A handsome devil with one eye the color of a promise and the other the color of a secret. When he saw Ronan, he rolled down the window.
“Ronan,” he said.
It sounded like he meant to say Finally.
“Dad,” Ronan said.
He was going to say I missed you. But he had been missing Niall Lynch for as long as he knew him.
A grin cracked over his father’s face. He had the widest smile in the world, and he’d given it to his youngest son. “You figured it out,” he said. He held a finger to his lips. “Remember?”
Music wafted out the open window of the BMW that had been Niall Lynch’s but was now Ronan’s. A soaring bit of tune played by the uilleann pipes, dissipating into the trees.
“I know,” Ronan replied. “Tell me what you meant in the will.”
His father said, “T’Libre vero-e ber nivo libre n’acrea.”
This Will stands as fact unless a newer document is created.
“It’s a loophole,” his father said. “A loophole for thieves.”
“Is that a lie?” Ronan asked.
Because Niall Lynch was the biggest liar of them all, and he’d stuffed all of that into his eldest son. There was not much difference between a lie and a secret.
“I never lie to you.”
His father started the BMW and flashed his slow smile at Ronan. What a grin he had, what ferocious eyes, what a creature he was. He had dreamt himself an entire life and death.
Ronan said, “I want to go back.”
“Then take it,” said his father. “You know how now.”
And Ronan did. Because Niall Lynch was a forest fire, a rising sea, a car crash, a closing curtain, a blistering symphony, a catalyst with planets inside him.
And he had given all of that to his middle son.
Niall Lynch reached his hand out. He clasped Ronan’s in his own. The engine was revving; even while holding Ronan’s hand, his foot was already on the gas pedal, on the way to the next place.
“Ronan,” he said.
And it sounded like he meant to say Wake up