UPON MY DEATH, MY CHILDREN SHALL BE ALLOWED FREE ACCESS TO “THE BARNS,” ALTHOUGH THEY MAY NOT ONCE AGAIN TAKE RESIDENCE THERE UNTIL ALL HAVE REACHED THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN.
Then, when he woke, they all helped to put Aurora Lynch in the car. And in silence, they drove her to the GPS coordinates marked in Gansey’s journal.
There was Cabeswater fully restored. It was spreading and mysterious, familiar and eerie, dreamer and dreamt. Every tree, Ronan thought, was a voice he might have heard before. And there was Noah, shoulders slumped, hand lifted in an apologetic wave. On one side of him, Adam stood, hands in pockets, and on the other side was Persephone, her fingers twisted together.
When they carried Aurora over the border, she woke like a rose blooms. And when she smiled at Ronan, he thought, Matthew does look a little like her.
She hugged him and said, “Flowers and ravens,” because she wanted him to know she remembered.
Then she hugged Matthew and said, “My love,” because he was her favorite.
She said nothing at all to Declan, because he wasn’t there.
Ronan’s second secret was Adam Parrish. Adam was different since making the bargain with Cabeswater. Stronger, stranger, farther away. It was hard not to stare at the odd and elegant lines of his face. He stood to one side while the Lynch brothers revived their mother, and then he told them all, “I have something to show you.”
As dawn began to pink the bark of the trees, they followed him deeper into Cabeswater.
“The pool is gone,” he said. “Where the fish changed color for Gansey. But now —”
Next to the dreaming tree, the pool had been replaced by a slanted and sheered rock surface. It was striated and cleaved with deep scratches, and the deepest of them cut all the way through the rock and into the ground. Cool blackness beckoned.
“A cave?” asked Gansey. “How deep does it go?”
Adam said, “I haven’t gone in. I don’t think it’s safe.”
“What’s the next step, then?” Gansey asked warily. It was hard to tell if he was wary of Adam or wary of the cavern.
Adam said, “Make it safer.”
He glanced at Ronan, eyebrows furrowed, as if sensing Ronan’s eyes on him.
Ronan looked away.
The third secret was the cavern itself. When they finally returned to 300 Fox Way, the sun was well up. To Ronan’s shock, a white Mitsubishi sat on the curb. For a moment, he thought — but then he saw the Gray Man waiting on the front step with Calla. His presence here instead of hundreds of miles away was not probable, but it was not impossible.
As Persephone climbed the stairs, Calla said accusingly, “This is your fault. Did you know this was going to happen?”
Persephone blinked her black eyes.
“Mr. Gray?” Blue asked. “How —”
“No,” Calla interrupted. “Later. Come with me.”
She led them upstairs to Maura’s bedroom. Pushing open the door, she let them take in the sight.
A candle was melted on the carpet. Beside it, in a square of strong daylight, a scrying bowl was knocked askew.
“Who did this? Where is Mom?” Blue demanded.
Calla wordlessly handed her a note. They all read it over Blue’s shoulder.
In a hasty, water-stained scrawl, it said, Glendower is underground. So am I.
I’d like to thank the usual suspects, but particularly Jackson Pearce, without whom this book quite literally wouldn’t exist. I’d like to thank Brenna Yovanoff for the beginning and Tessa Gratton for the end.
The team at Scholastic continues to be amazing, particularly David Levithan, ever tolerant of my foibles, and Becky Amsel, ever enabling my foibles. Special thanks as always to Rachel Horowitz and Janelle DeLuise for getting me read all over the world.
Blue Ridge Mac: You saved my life, on deadline, not once, but twice. I won’t forget that. Ponies for all of you.
Agent Laura Rennert: You also saved my life, on deadline, not once, not twice, but repeatedly. I won’t forget that, either. Ponies for eternity.
As always, I’m useless without my family. Dad, thanks for dragons. Mom, thanks for hours and hours and hours. Ed, you had to live with Kavinsky for fourteen months. There aren’t enough ponies for that.
MAGGIE STIEFVATER is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, and Forever. Her novel The Scorpio Races was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association. She lives in Virginia. You can visit her online at www.maggiestiefvater.com.