Archive of Our Own

In a land of myth, in a time of magic, there was a quaint, prosperous kingdom called Aglionby. Aglionby was notable for its gift of luring in those who had special abilities or a keen interest in the supernatural. Though many wondrous people were attracted to the wondrous kingdom, it seemed to be the way of things that there was always one person who captured the public eye like no other. One person whom it was universally agreed was the most desirable. One person in the kingdom who was the most sought-after. At the time that Adam Parrish was arriving in Aglionby, this person was Piper Laumonier. She was gorgeous, capable, and ruthless in a way that seemed intriguing from a distance but was really rather alarming the more one got to know her. She, alas, perished in an attempt to summon demons unto the earth. And so as fate would have it, there was something of a vacancy right around the time that the gossip regarding Adam Parrish really took off.

Adam was an introverted creature and provided next to no information about himself to anyone, but this did nothing to hinder the kingdom's growing interest in him. Rather the opposite. The public’s attention always seemed the most captivated not merely by physical attractiveness, but by an element of mystery, of power, and by the pursuit of a challenge. Adam Parrish was truly exemplary in all of these desired qualities. (Not that he himself saw it this way. He was a poor judge in these things.)

The story of Adam Parrish went something like this: after leaving home with nothing but the few silver pieces he’d managed to save up and an utter lack of hearing in his left ear, he’d met a traveling sellsword on the road, who in whispers was known only as The Gray Man. The Gray Man was soft-spoken and well-mannered and didn't seem to mean any harm to anyone, which Adam found incredibly suspicious. But The Gray Man seemed to admire Adam's pluck and had escorted Adam to a tavern called The Fox Way, which was run by psychics. This seemed like odd company for a sellsword to keep, but Adam had half a notion that the Gray Man had a romance going with one of the psychics, Maura...although Adam wasn't entirely sure and really hadn't wanted to ask. At any rate, Adam helped around the tavern and the stables in exchange for a room, and without being fully aware exactly how it happened, he found himself becoming a sort of apprentice to one of the psychics, Persephone.

Adam was immensely grateful to Persephone for all that she taught him, and moreover, for how well she understood him. It was Persephone who recognized how much his autonomy mattered to him and helped him move into a place he could call his own. It was a hovel; it was Adam Parrish’s. It was Persephone who insisted Adam accompany her whenever she had dealings with the royal family, which was how, inexplicable as it seemed, Adam came to befriend Richard Campbell Gansey, Third of His Name, heir to all Aglionby.

Gansey was intelligent and kind-hearted, even if he could be thoughtlessly patronizing, and a far better friend than Adam could ever have imagined finding. He was endlessly fascinated with what Adam learned from Persephone, and he had his heart set on appointing Adam as his court magician when the time came. Adam couldn't help thinking something would fall through before then, but even so the idea of it inspired him to work twice as hard with Persephone. (Which was saying something.) Of course, when you spent your time with Gansey, that meant you also spent your time with Ronan Lynch.

Ronan Lynch. Trouble with a shaved head and a striking tattoo that spanned the entirety of his back, owner of a truly remarkable amount of sword blades and also a raven, well-versed in the art of cursing. He was set to become Gansey’s personal guard and chief military adviser, so Adam couldn’t escape him. Ronan Lynch was easily the most vexing part about Adam’s time at the castle, like a heart attack that never stopped.

Adam had established himself fairly well within Aglionby - lessons with Persephone, deep conversations with Gansey, perpetual bickering with Lynch - when the day came that Adam would later look back on as the beginning of the end.

It started with Blue knocking on his door. There was something a little urgent about the knocking, and although they spent a good deal of time together, Blue didn't usually come to him. Blue Sargent was the only woman of Fox Way who had no psychic abilities, although her ability to amplify the abilities of others was extraordinary. This rare talent was why she was also usually present for dealings with the royal family. She was a force to be reckoned with, genuine and unrepentant in her viewpoints, and Adam held her in very high regard. He’d had something of an infatuation with her, even, but in the rare moments they spent alone she mainly debated politics or went on at length about how she didn’t see how someone as obtuse and tactless as Gansey could ever hope to rule a kingdom...and to be perfectly frank, Adam didn’t have the time or energy to try to court her. Ultimately, Adam thought that they were both in tacit agreement that they were better off leaving things the way they were.

“I’m really sorry about this, Adam,” Blue said, with an uncomfortable, rueful expression that wasn't like her. “But I figured you'd rather deal with this up at Fox Way rather than end up being tracked back here.”

“Deal with what?” Adam asked warily.

'What’ turned out to be Tad Carruthers. The Carruthers were some sort of minor nobility (Adam honestly couldn't be bothered) and Tad had shown up at Fox Way claiming that he’d heard they grew the finest herbs in the kingdom. He'd demanded an audience with whomever was responsible for growing them. This pretense was so flimsy it was downright pathetic. Calla wasted no time in informing Tad that tending the herbs was Adam’s job, and then proceeded to shoo Tad outside. Then Blue was unofficially yet unanimously elected to fetch Adam and make him make Tad go away.

When Adam arrived, Tad insisted they take a walk down to the modest garden on the edge of the forest, which Adam had taken responsibility for when he’d first started with Persephone. Tad asked a few meager questions about the plants, but quickly decided he’d had enough of subtlety and pestered Adam with questions about himself instead. Adam hadn’t answered any of them with more than five words, but Tad hadn't been deterred. It was one of the most awkward, most painstaking conversations Adam had ever taken part in. At one point, Tad had touched his hair. Finally, Adam had thrown diplomacy to the wayside and told Tad that he had other things he really needed to be doing. Tad hadn't seemed deterred by this either, even when Adam left too quickly for Tad to have the opportunity to suggest that they get together some time to talk more about plant life.

Somehow Tad had come away from this experience thinking Adam was coy and charming. (Or so Adam later heard from Blue, who’d tried to offer some small consolation by telling him that he could take it with a grain of salt, since she’d heard it from Orla.) Tad found Adam so coy and charming he’d apparently felt the need to tell all his high-born friends just how coy and charming Adam was. At least, Tad’s far-spread fawning over him was the leading theory as to why so many nobles all took such a peaked interest in Adam’s marital status. (This was actually Ronan’s theory. Adam hadn’t believed it, he’d assumed Ronan was just giving him shit as usual. But Noah had simply nodded along like it seemed perfectly plausible to him, rather than running with the joke. Which could’ve just been Noah being Noah. But the real nail in the coffin came when Adam had looked at Gansey, and Gansey had actually winced, faintly, in an apologetic, commiserating sort of way.)

Whatever the case, the fact was that the kingdom’s fixation with Adam Parrish rose to such heights that Gansey had to sit Adam down with a look on his face that was alarmingly similar to the uncomfortable, rueful expression Blue had worn before, and explain that his father the King had asked him to speak to Adam on the King’s behalf. Apparently, more than a hundred potential suitors had requested an audience with the King to discuss proposals for Adam Parrish’s hand in marriage. Richard Campbell Gansey Second of His Name told Richard Campbell Gansey Third of His Name to tell Adam Parrish of No Significant Name that he had to pick someone to wed, so that this unruly business would be done with. Gansey had apologized profusely throughout his explanation, and had offered to arrange interviews with the nobles he thought Adam might have the most in common with, but Adam had walked out.

He didn’t blame Gansey. He knew Gansey didn’t want this for him and he knew that he had to be willing to accept a certain amount of conformity to tradition if he was ever going to get ahead at court. But right now he needed to be alone, to process, to come up with a solution.

He went to the library.

He roamed the shelves, letting his fingers drift over the spines of the books. He didn't know what kind of book could help him in this particular situation, but there had to be something. In Adam’s experience, there were books for just about everything. He’d read some truly incredible books as part of his lessons with Persephone, and heard about even more: books that held instructions on how to alter the flow of time or to communicate with the departed, books considered so dangerous that they were only known by rumor, burned or hidden away. Adam had the beginnings of an idea. He had research to do.

Later that night, he went to find Gansey. This wasn't difficult. He followed the sound of almost artistic profanity and raven's calls that meant Ronan Lynch was within a 100 yard radius, knowing the odds were good that he’d find Gansey there as well, and he was not wrong.

“Adam!” Gansey said as soon as he saw Adam enter the courtyard, a portrait of harrowed youth. “I’m so-”

“It’s all right.” It wasn't, not really, but Adam was going to make it as right as it could be. “I have an answer for your father.”

Ronan, who’d been yelling about something right up until he’d seen Adam - Adam hadn't exactly felt the need to strain his hearing ear trying to make out actual words between the excess of curses and the cawing echoing off the walls - went unnaturally still. He could have been carved from stone, except for the caustic glint in his eyes and arch of his eyebrows.

Adam held Ronan’s gaze. He knew it was foolish but he hated the sense of backing down from a challenge. “If anyone approaches the King with an interest in marrying me, His Majesty can tell them that I’ll accept the proposal of the first person who provides me with my own copy of the Scriptum Somnium.”

Adam could admit (to himself, no one else) that he was curious how Ronan would react. But even though he was looking, it was difficult to read Ronan’s face. Disbelief and something more pressing, something like alarm, maybe, flickered over Ronan's features, too quickly for Adam to scrutinize properly, before his expression hardened into highly accustomed anger.

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Parrish?”

“If I were interested in your opinion, I would have asked for it, Lynch.”

“I think what Ronan meant to say-” Gansey began, with well-trained kingly patience, but Ronan spoke over him.

“What I meant to say was is he out of his goddamn fucking mind. In case I wasn't emphatic enough for you the first time, Dick.”

“Ronan Lynch either you keep a civil tongue or you leave,” Gansey said, with crisp authority that Adam didn't think you could truly master unless you were born knowing your father and your father's father had authority before you. Gansey turned to Adam. “We’re both worried for you, Adam. I assume you're skeptical that the Scriptum Somnium exists, but there are magical discoveries every day that defy belief. I think we ought to at least discuss the possibility that someone might meet your terms, however minimal the odds may seem.”

Adam had considered this on his own and didn’t see the benefit of ‘discussing it’ but he knew - intellectually - that Gansey didn’t mean to be condescending and that he genuinely cared, so Adam said quietly, “If someone meets my terms, then I keep my word.”

“Adam-” Gansey cut himself off, but it was plain that what he meant to say was something to the effect of, you can’t be serious. Still, Adam supposed he deserved credit for the self-restraint.

Ronan watched Gansey with sharp eyes, waiting for Gansey to say more, but Gansey seemed to be at a loss for words. After an impatient moment of silence went by, Ronan actually threw his hands up. His raven beat its wings, seemingly in solidarity. “You’ve got to be shitting me. You - you could end up with the skeeviest psychopath to ever crawl out of some fucking cave somewhere, you don’t even want a say, you just want a book, that’s good enough for you?”

Adam was about to make a remark about Ronan’s thespian talents, but Ronan didn’t give him the chance.

“Don’t give me that fucking face, Parrish, you know what I mean. You could be stuck with anyone. They could be old.” Ronan said ‘old’ with a disgust so profound one would think he was naming a highly-contagious flesh-eating disease.

“I imagine it wouldn’t be a very long marriage, then.”

“For fuck’s sake-” Ronan took a quick breath in through his nose and let it out of his mouth, holding Adam’s gaze. “You’re stubborn enough to go through with this, aren't you.” He made an aggravated noise between his teeth and cupped both hands behind his head. “Listen. Whatever pros and cons you were weighing that led you to believe the rewards would be worth the risk, you've got it wrong, all right, this is the wrong call. You can't just operate under the assumption that it doesn't exist; you have to think about what kind of assholes go around hoarding rare powerful magical objects that are gonna come for you.”

“I’m not a child, Lynch, you're not gonna scare me.” Adam frowned, striving for patience. He didn't want to let Ronan get a reaction out of him. “I’ve looked into it. Of all the arcane magical texts the royal family has gathered information on over the years, the Scriptum Somnium is the least substantiated. No one can even agree what it does. Some claim it can reveal the future or hidden secrets, others claim it can teach you to control the weather or to set vermin on your enemies. There’s not a single known owner, or any sort of record of its whereabouts. Most likely it’s a fabrication that combines several old texts. On the off chance that it does exist, it would still be unreasonably difficult to find. And as for any elderly intensive procurers of magical artifacts who might have it hoarded away - which seems to be a big concern of yours - I can’t imagine that they’d be willing to part with it just for the opportunity to marry me.”

“You don’t get it,” Ronan said simply. Adam had expected Ronan to carry on with his anger, or at the least make a sarcastic comment, but Ronan had a tendency to be contrary just for the sake of it. He surveyed Adam then with a shrewd, deceptively cool gaze that made Adam think Ronan actually did follow Adam’s thought process, at least partially.

Ronan, for all he went through life as a cataclysm all his own, was uncannily perceptive when he wasn’t feigning total disinterest. Adam could believe that Ronan understood his position. That this was one of the neatest ways Adam could defer from having to pick from a mass of entitled brainless lordlings like Tad Carruthers. That as repellent as he found the idea that he may have to sacrifice his independence to the whims of those who were higher born than him, he couldn’t afford to forgo all social graces and refuse to marry anyone outright. He didn’t have the luxury of Ronan’s status. Although some talk had gone around when Declan had gotten it into his head that it was time for Ronan to ‘settle down’ and it had ended with an all-out brawl between the brothers (Ronan crowed for weeks after about a particularly good punch he’d landed to Declan’s mouth, asserting loudly that he hoped he’d left permanent damage anytime Gansey tried to admonish him. He hadn’t. Declan’s lip healed in due time and, rest assured, his smile was as resplendent as ever.) no one ever questioned Ronan’s place at court. Adam had to play a different game, and currently it involved vying for time to find a longer-term solution. Maybe Ronan didn't like it, but he was aware enough to see without having to be told that no option would be perfect but this option suited Adam's needs best. That even if he was given the Scriptum Somnium and had to get married in exchange, it wasn't as if he had conscientious parents to aid him in finding a good match, or to mitigate the fallout from those suitors who were left feeling spurned, if he married just on personal preference. That at least this way he knew he'd be getting something of concrete value out of the arrangement. That he didn't believe in marriages based on love, after the example he’d grown up with, but he did have some belief in making an alliance with someone who could help advance his magical studies. That despite the fact that unfounded interest in him seemed to be the current fad, it couldn't last, and if he didn't act carefully now, he could end up with no prospects at all. It angered Adam, faintly, that he could tell Ronan did comprehend these factors that Adam had to take into account, and yet, Ronan didn't think any of it really mattered. He thought Adam should just tell the world no and damn the consequences, because that's what he did, because he was never phased by the wreckage left around his feet. Adam wasn't going to live his life that way.

“I’m telling you; you don’t know what you're dealing with, Parrish, and it's gonna bite you on the ass,” Ronan said, with more of that same deceptive calm.

“It's not your decision to make,” Adam told him, with forced calm of his own.

“It's not a decision that has to be made right now. We can talk more in the morning,” Gansey said, looking worriedly between them.

Adam only shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not in a rush.” But he didn't see what would be different in the morning, and he didn't think Gansey really did either.

Ronan merely turned around and left, his raven soaring behind him.

The next day, Gansey reluctantly agreed to pass on the message to his father.

The day after that, a royal announcement was made. Adam really tried not to pay too much attention and to go about his business as usual. Apparently, there were near riots in all the closest bookshops. (Ronan was Adam’s first source of this information, and again he assumed Ronan was just giving him shit. But a short while later, Helen had swept by with a comment about how he was lucky he was pretty, because what with the fuss he was causing she’d had to double the guard’s patrol.)

The night after that, Adam returned home as usual to find a book lying in wait for him on his bed.

It was just sitting there. Adam scanned the room and looked out of the doorway, his throat working in a way that spread the feeling of caught through his whole body, but he saw no signs of anyone. Slowly he let out a breath and approached the book.

It was thinner than Adam would have imagined, with a cover of sturdy brown leather illuminated with an elaborate design of what looked like green thread that gave the impression of something growing. It had no title.

Cautiously, Adam sunk down onto the bed and opened the book to the first page.

For the Magician, was written in Latin in a fanciful twisting scrawl, leave it under your pillow while you dream.

Adam touched his fingertips to the letters lightly, thoughts whirling. Was this really for him? Was it some sort of trap?

He leafed through the rest of the book, mindful of the delicate parchment, but whatever magic was at work it didn't make for easy reading. Some of the pages told stories of ancient kings, some bore illustrations of dragons or adages that had to do with fish, some described spells for flight or invisibility that sounded so whimsical and outlandish Adam assumed they had to be fictitious. All of it was peculiarly hard to concentrate on. His head hurt if he looked at any one page for too long, and he could only half remember what was on the page before, but if he turned the pages back, they changed on him, showing him something entirely different. (A book you couldn't really read; it sort of went against Adam’s principles.)

It was nothing like Adam expected, but it was undeniably real. Someone found the Scriptum Somnium; someone left it for him. Adam tucked the book into his satchel (he had the errant thought, there’ll be no living with Ronan after this) and went to talk to Persephone.

“It’s rather late,” Persephone greeted him distantly from the porch, and yet she led him into the kitchen where two cups of tea were already arranged, still steaming.

When Adam pulled out the book, Persephone only smiled in a mild, slightly indulgent way, as if he were drawing her attention to a passing cloud or a particularly eye-catching river rock. He held it out for her, wanting her to take it, but her hands didn’t move from where they rested daintily in her lap.

“It wasn’t left for me,” she told him, watching him with her fathomless dark eyes.

“It’s… This is the Scriptum Somnium?” he asked, tracing a bit of the soft green thread with his finger, back and forth, back and forth.

“What else would it be,” Persephone said in her small, patient voice.

“Do you know who left it?”

“Someone who thinks a lot of you,” she responded, untroubled. “Drink your tea.” She took a sip of hers as Adam took a sip of his, and they drank in companionable silence for a long stretch of time.

“Persephone, do you think I should use it?” he asked at last.

“It’s a nice book,” she said, tipping her head faintly in a gesture that was as close as she ever came to a shrug. “And it’s what you asked for. Have you decided you don’t want it, Adam?”

He wasn’t entirely sure that he did want it, but phrased that way, he realized he wasn't prepared to say that he didn’t want it.

Still, he wasn’t quite ready to put it under his pillow that night, and he slept restlessly, besides. He didn’t want to share the book with anyone else. He knew there was no avoiding it.

In the morning he brought the book to Gansey, who looked through it almost reverently, scholar’s mind clear at work behind bright hazel eyes. His forehead furrowed as he offered the book back, though, rubbing a thumb over his bottom lip. “And they left nothing to identify themselves? What do you think that means?”

“You mean besides the fact that Parrish needs better home security?” Ronan muttered from where he was lounging indolently by the window, eyes on his raven who seemed very keen on inspecting the legs of his chair. Ronan hadn’t spared the book more than a single scathing glance before he’d seemed to decide he wanted nothing to do with it.

“This is serious,” Gansey told him.

“I know. What, your witch mistresses couldn’t get you some better protection, Parrish? What are they good for?”

“Ronan.” Gansey cut in. “Your commentary isn’t helpful or appreciated. Why would someone go through the trouble of obtaining such a rare magical artifact only to give it away for seemingly nothing in return? Are they planning to break their anonymity at a later time? Why would they wait?”

“I wouldn’t think too hard,” Ronan said with a taut curl of his lip. “For all you know the would-be suitor came right up to Parrish with the book and Parrish murdered them and left their body in a ditch so he’d get to keep it without any commitments.”

“Ronan,” Gansey said, tiredly.

“What? It’d be smart. Smarter than him living with some asswipe for the rest of his life just because they happen to have some book Parrish is a giant nerd over.”

“Ronan,” Gansey said a third time, just in case it happened to be the charm that somehow managed to make Ronan reconsider his lifelong dedication to being an asshole.

“What. Seems to me like Parrish just dodged a huge pile of shit. If anyone tries to say the book is theirs after the fact, Parrish is clever enough to find the holes in their stories. He can make them himself if he has to. Maybe now he'll think twice about asking for obscure magical shit he doesn't understand when his hundred and one fucking suitors demand new and exciting opportunities to win his hand.”

“Parrish is standing right here,” Adam said, not trying to conceal on his face that he was thinking about how he’d never understand why Ronan was permitted on the castle grounds. “You seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject, are you volunteering to assist me with the interviews I’ll be holding with anyone who has information about the Scriptum Somnium?”

“Fuck no. I’d rather have to wear only Gansey's clothes for the rest of my entire life.”

Adam arched an eyebrow. “Then why don't you let Gansey and I discuss meeting schedules between ourselves, so you don't have to go to extremes.”

“Fine with me,” Ronan said, getting to his feet in one smooth motion and turning his back on them. “Come on, hellion.” This was to his raven. “Let's go find Noah.”

Adam, to be perfectly honest, didn't like the idea of having to sit through meetings with his potential suitors any more than Ronan did. In fact, despite the little voice inside him that always warned him not to waste time, he asked Gansey not to even announce that he had received the Scriptum Somnium until the following day. Then they’d deal with whoever sought an audience as they came. For now, Adam wanted at least a little time to himself, to use his book.

It surprised Adam somewhat, how his desire to try the Scriptum Somnium had grown to outpace his usual sense of caution, when all reason said it was dangerous and foolhardy. Be that as it may, the Scriptum Somnium was a question posed and the need for an answer bothered Adam with all the subtlety of a hole in a tooth. He knew he’d have to see this through.

And so, feeling offensively close to being the kind of lackadaisical child who wanted to pass an exam but didn’t actually want to put in the effort of studying, Adam put the book under his pillow that night.

Adam dreamed of a forest. He had the peculiar thought, this isn’t my dream. Because his dreams, when he remembered them, were stark and not particularly pleasant. (That first night he’d given Gansey his answer for the King, he’d dreamt that he was alone in a house that wasn’t his and someone who filled him with dread was trying to get inside, and the door refused to stay locked. He’d woken up feeling exasperated with his own subconscious mind.) He didn’t think he could ever come up with this place, not anything close to the lavish sort of charm that was woven into everything here, from the vivid greens of the tree’s canopy to the sunlight glinting on the surface of the stream to the soft breeze carrying the scent of grass and wildflowers.

Adam walked between the trees, and there was Ronan Lynch.

He looked back at Adam, and then his gaze turned assessing, and the expression on his face closed off. Adam wished that he’d been paying better attention, because he hadn't noticed how different Ronan's expression had been until it had gone.

Ronan took a step closer and reached out to touch Adam’s wrist, very carefully, the barest graze of his fingers, as if he thought Adam were a mirage that was a heartbeat away from dissipating. “Adam?”

Adam felt his eyebrows furrow. “Is this some kind of test?”

Ronan exhaled and pulled back, shaking his head. “I think it's really you. What are you doing here?” he asked, but in a low voice like it was to himself.

“It’s a dream,” Adam said, half exasperated. “I’ve never found much rhyme or reason for where I am or what I do in my dreams.”

Ronan made a noncommittal noise. “Well stay sharp, things can get dangerous.”

Adam arched an eyebrow. “Why? What are you doing?”

“I mean, I had a plan, but that’s gone to shit now. I don't want to stir anything up. Let's keep moving and see what we find.”

Adam shrugged in agreement and followed Ronan through the woods, letting his fingers brush the leaves. They felt crisp and faintly damp and so real. “This isn't a normal dream.”

“What makes you say that,” Ronan said, dry enough to contain an entire desert.

Before Adam could make a retort, Ronan went, “Oh, I know where we’re going.”

He didn't seem in the mood to elucidate though, picking up his step as he led Adam down a narrow dirt path. He steered them with purpose to a clearing in the trees, which didn't seem particularly noteworthy except that there was a swing.

It was a solid sort of swing, made up of a large, weathered wooden base and long, long rope gone greenish with moss. It looked a little like it might've just grown right out of the branch it was hanging from. The tree grew out of the hillside at a crooked angle, so that the swing almost seemed to hang over empty air.

Ronan grabbed the swing and looked at Adam with a dare in his eyes.

“You’re kidding,” Adam muttered, mostly to himself. “All the big talk surrounding the Scriptum Somnium, and I get Ronan Lynch and a swing?”

“First off, this isn’t just any swing, all right? It’s badass. And second, I told you that book would be nothing but a dumb fucking shitshow. Now get on.”

Adam looked at Ronan.

“You really wanna drag this out, Parrish? Get on.”

Adam rolled his eyes, and got on.

It was... ...pretty badass.

The swing was so long and so strategically positioned that when the swing arced away from the hill, the ground just melted away from beneath you and you were soaring.

Also, Ronan Lynch, as it turned out, excelled in the art of swing pushing. He could send Adam flying with more momentum than seemed physically possible. He’d draw all the way back, as far as he could get, and wind Adam around and around and around so the ropes were twisted tightly together above Adam's head, and then he had a way of putting a spin on it when he flung Adam onward and upward that left Adam whirling like a cyclone.

He didn’t think he’d ever been that dizzy before. He didn’t think he’d ever laughed that much.

Ronan was such an excellent swing pusher that quite frankly when it was Ronan’s turn on the swing Adam didn’t see how he could compare. Of course, Ronan Lynch was an unstoppable force, and even if Adam’s pushes weren’t on Ronan’s level, Ronan simply made up for it by doing things like standing up when the swing was at its highest point and taking his hands off the rope. Just as Adam was starting to have concerns that Ronan would fall, Ronan actively jumped.

“Jesus,” Adam said as he watched Ronan hurtle down the hill, a disarray of long limbs and sharp angles. “You trying to snap your neck?”

“Wouldn’t be the worst way to go,” Ronan said, sprawled out casually in the grass, and Christ, it sounded like he was speaking from personal experience. “Stop looking so tense, you gotta appreciate the good dreams when you have them.”

It occurred to Adam, then, that this was Ronan Lynch, happy. He wasn’t quite smiling, but there was an easy curve to his mouth and the set of his shoulders that Adam had never seen during their waking hours. Something about his contentment seemed to radiate out from him like light as he lay there, in no particular rush to pick himself up, and Adam...kind of wanted to join him.

He didn’t, though. He waited until Ronan came back up the hill, and gave more sub-par pushes, and tried not to look impressed or amused or otherwise react in any way that would seem like he was encouraging Ronan’s wild stunts. Not that Ronan needed any encouragement.

Then Ronan, one foot on the swing to keep it in place and whole body coiled to leap the rest of the way onto it, said, “Get on here.”

Adam blinked at him flatly. “That’s a terrible idea.”

“It’s a fantastic idea. Move your ass.”

This was definitely a terrible idea.

“What are you waiting for, a countdown? Come on, Parrish.”

Adam stepped up onto the swing, and then Ronan was taking a running start and leaping up behind him, close, there really wasn’t enough room for the both of them, and they were going up up up, and then gravity was yanking them back down and they were hitting the ground hard and tumbling over one another.

They leveled out in a heap of elbows and bruises, warm skin and quakes of laughter.

“You good?” Ronan asked, with a light smack to Adam’s back that did very little in terms of discerning injuries.

“Who knows?” He was mostly unscathed, miraculously. He was still laughing a little.

“Again?” Ronan asked.

“Yeah.”

Adam had a deep loathing for having to wake up, but it was never because he was having a dream he didn't want to part with. It was an odd sort of disappointment to wake up to.

He remembered his conviction that it wasn't just a dream, how impossibly real it all seemed, but now that he was awake it was hard to hold on to, like so much water between his fingers.

He pulled the book out from under his pillow and looked at the cover. Ronan Lynch and a swing. A real help this book was turning out to be.

He’d try again, and in the meantime he wouldn't focus on the strange feeling that came along with seeing Ronan in person. Ronan, for his part, was as contemptuous and abrasive as ever. The dream version aligned with the reality about as well as a spade aligned with a fillet knife.

Adam was prepared to write the experience off, except that it wasn’t an isolated incident. Ronan Lynch kept appearing in his dreams.

They were undoubtedly the strangest dreams he’d ever had, and the best. He dreamed of unicorns. They really didn’t seem much different from horses, as far as Adam could tell, but they were magnificent specimens, hands and hands larger than any horse Adam had ever worked with, including Gansey’s glorious and willful stallion Ronan affectionately called The Boar. Adam was enamored on sight. They were all whipcord muscle rippling under sleek gray coats, and more important than the iron-like horns spiraling from the center of their foreheads was their fluid effortless speed. They were fast enough to let you leave everything else behind. Ronan warned him not to let them get close to the water; Adam thought he was mixing up his lore, but listened all the same. The unicorn Adam rode seemed to know exactly what he wanted from it without needing to be told, hoofbeats thundering in time with Adam’s heartbeat. Ronan’s unicorn was a wilder beast, rearing and tossing its stormy mane whenever it sensed the slightest waver in Ronan’s attention. The exultant grin on Ronan’s face was something to see. They raced for the thrill of it, with no end point in mind.

He dreamed of peculiar houses in the trees. They had to climb a good twenty or thirty feet to reach them, small cottage-like dwellings connected one after the other by beams or thick plaited vines, uninhabited but full of endlessly fascinating artifacts. Traveling between them was its own adventure: Ronan swinging from vines like he’d been doing it all his life, whooping and trying to goad Adam into jumping to him. The discoveries they made easily qualified as another: writing carved onto the walls that vaguely resembled Latin, but if it was whoever wrote it had a more advanced vocabulary than Adam had ever studied but even more disregard for grammar than Ronan; gossamer feathers from some form of creature that was likely mythological that were downy soft and curiously incorporeal in Adam’s hands; tarnished telescopes and mirrors that Ronan didn’t want him touching. A lost civilization for them to explore.

He dreamed of fast-moving rivers. Ronan handed him an oar and crowded him on to an insubstantial looking wooden raft that, knowing Ronan, was actually designed to fall apart; Ronan would find that amusing. He propelled them as hard as he could off of rocks and pitched them directly into cresting waves for maximum sea spray. Adam decided to make a personal challenge out of keeping their raft steady enough not to capsize. He was so proficient in this that Ronan gave him a truly impassioned roll of his eyes, and jumped. Then dragged Adam in with him. Naturally. Their raft never did fall apart on them. It did, however, get carried away downriver while they were otherwise engaged in a dunking war. They made do.

It wasn't all that difficult to put the pieces together and form a picture. Since he’d gotten the Scriptum Somnium, he’d dreamed of Ronan, not every night, but more nights than not. Dreams that were impossibly real and miles away from anything Adam could imagine on his own. Magic was involved, he could sense it like you could sense sunlight on your skin, if it weren't readily apparent already, and he knew that the subject of his dreams was most likely the original owner of the Scriptum Somnium. It made sense. It made the most sense in his dreams. When he was awake he worried more that he could be wrong; the things that had felt meaningful seemed more like flights of fancy that he was wasting his time reading into. He went back and forth: sure that Ronan had given him the Scriptum Somnium; sure, somehow, that the Ronan he met in his dreams wasn't just a recall from his subconscious, that it was actually Ronan; sure that he was an idiot. Adam never tried to talk about it while they were awake. Ronan outside of his dreams didn’t act any different.

Then one night a dream went wrong. Not all of the dreams he spent with Ronan were peaceful. Oftentimes there were dangers, and not the type Ronan loved seeking out, but elements of nightmares. This dream went beyond that. When Adam first found Ronan, Ronan had his eyes closed tight and there were fireflies circling his head. Adam saw the tension lining his face, and didn’t want to break his concentration. But the fireflies slowly stopped twinkling and then one by one they guttered out of existence like snuffed candle flames, leaving behind only a thin trail of noxious looking smoke.

There was a sense of agitation that crawled through the entire dreamscape that Adam could feel at the core of him. The seizing sort of dread that came from recognizing that something bad was coming, from knowing you only had a little time and littler hope of preventing it from happening. Adam was intimately acquainted with this feeling, from his time before Aglionby, from looking between his father’s livid eyes - say something quick, Adam, what does he wanna hear? - to his father's clenched fists.

Adam didn’t know what was happening, but he had enough experience to know that at this stage there was no avoiding it, and he wanted to help. “Ronan?”

Ronan’s eyes opened, and there was something terrible and shuttered about them. “Get out of here, Adam.”

Something was coming. Adam could hear it, the spine-chilling scritch of talons and low rustle of wings.

Adam couldn’t leave.

Ronan’s voice was sharp and full of force. “Adam, wake up!”

Adam resisted, some mental part of him clawing to keep a hold of the dream, but the dream was being swept away from him like the tide going out, dissolving into nothing.

Adam woke to early morning light streaming through his window. He blinked, a little disoriented, and then realization came, a shard of ice slipping down his throat into his stomach. Ronan was in danger, he could be hurt, he could be-

Adam cursed as he quickly changed his clothes. He didn't understand how so much time had passed, he felt like he’d only been asleep for a few minutes. But the sun was already well into the sky by the time he arrived at the castle. It was the only time he was angry with himself for not just taking any one of the many rooms Gansey had offered.

“Have you seen Ronan?” Adam asked as soon as he spotted Gansey.

“No.” Gansey’s face creased with worry. Ronan had been found in bad condition before, and now Adam was wondering what unconsidered reasons there may have been for that. “Why, what's happened?”

“I don't know, we have to find him.”

Swiftly and silently they went to Ronan's room. Gansey knocked. “Ronan?” He tried the handle, locked. He knocked again. “Ronan, if you're in there, you need to open the door, this is important.”

There was no answer, no sound behind the door.

Adam banged on the door. “Ronan, if you don't answer we’re coming in.”

Still nothing.

Adam closed his eyes to concentrate on a spell to open locks, when Noah's voice said, “He’s not in there.”

Adam opened his eyes to see Noah standing at the end of the hall, out of the way of the sun slanting through the window, looking forlornly at Ronan’s door.

“He’s all right…” Noah didn't sound incredibly confident about this. “But he's not there. You’ll have to wait.”

They’d known Noah long enough to know that Noah knew things. How, he’d never explain. Noah said what he said and trying to get anything else out of him was essentially a lesson in the idiom 'getting blood from a stone.'

From there, Adam had a quiet conversation with Gansey wherein he felt absurd trying to explain that he had a magician’s intuition that Ronan may be hurt (but less absurd than he’d feel if he tried to share his experiences since acquiring the Scriptum Somnium and his theories on that, particularly if he turned out to be spectacularly wrong) and promised to give Gansey more information when he had it. Then he went to the library to keep himself busy while Gansey attended his princely duties, and was a little bit disgusted by his own inability to find his sense of focus, until Noah appeared at his shoulder sometime after noon.

“He’s in his room,” Noah said, pointing a finger vaguely in the general direction, as if Adam might’ve forgotten the way.

This time when Adam banged on the door, Ronan Lynch opened it with a characteristic imperious look.

Adam was so relieved to see him whole and not drastically permanently harmed that he felt his shoulders drop with it.

Ronan looked him over and cocked an eyebrow. “What’s with you?”

“We need to talk.”

That eyebrow went higher, and Ronan let out a scoff. “This should be good.” But he stepped aside to let Adam in.

Once Adam was inside he got a closer look at Ronan. There were jagged angry red marks on his neck that receded beneath the collar of his shirt that looked like something nasty had gotten its teeth in him.

“Let me see the rest.”

They engaged in a stare down, in which Ronan's gaze demanded are you fucking serious and Adam’s gaze affirmed yes I damn well am.

Ronan let out a great put-upon breath, and took off his shirt. “Happy?”

“Jesus, Ronan.” He was a landscape of shredded skin, claw marks reaching as far as from his shoulder blade down to his hip. Though all of it looked painful, luckily none of it looked deep. “You’ve got to put something on this.”

“I already did, you think I’m an idiot?”

“I bet you didn't reapply.”

Ronan rolled his eyes in a thoroughly dramatic fashion, which Adam took to prove his point.

“What'd you use?” he asked, holding a hand out.

Ronan, looking even more put-upon than he already had been - he’d really have to pace himself now, even with his extensive practice surely he was close to the limit - went to a drawer and came back with a small white jar, smooth and featureless and smelling faintly of fresh rain and moss, and dropped it into Adam’s open palm.

Applying the salve was fine. Adam diligently covered the damaged skin and whispered a spell to help aid the healing process. Things were always simpler when he had a task before him that he could complete. Moreover, this was medical attention, it wasn’t personal, and Adam compartmentalized as instinctively as he breathed.

But after, when the task was done and Adam had nothing else to focus on but Ronan Lynch close and bare from the waist up, looking at Adam like he was waiting for Adam’s next move, that’s when things became...tense. Adam swallowed silently, thumb running back and forth over the pads of his fingers. It had to be in his head, but they still felt warm from Ronan’s skin. Adam had to fight down the desire to touch when he no longer had a reason to, had to bite down on the inside of his lip and tell himself not to think about tracing the dark twisting lines of Ronan’s tattoo.

“Impressive trick,” Ronan said at last, pulling his shirt back on. He surveyed his arm, where the marks were only faint things. If they both didn’t know better, the scratches could’ve passed for old wounds that had almost finished healing. “Since when can you do that?”

“I can do lots of things since I’ve started working with the Scriptum Somnium.” The book hadn’t had the legendary effects of rumor, but it helped in small ways in every aspect of Adam’s magic. He was more stable when he scried, his tarot readings were clearer, spells he’d struggled with before he performed now with far stronger results than he’d ever managed on his own. He was more connected to everything. He took a breath. “I wasn’t sure if I was really supposed to say thank you, if the gift was technically anonymous.”

Ronan looked at him, and Adam looked back, waiting for him to say something - he looked like he wanted to - but he didn’t.

“You can’t just pretend like none of this is happening, Ronan. Look at you, what the hell happened to you? I looked for you as soon as I woke up but you weren’t here, where the hell did you go?”

“I can show you.” Ronan said it like a dare. “If you’re sure you wanna know.”

Adam simply held his gaze. He wasn’t backing down.

Ronan shrugged at him, a you asked sort of gesture, and moved to the corner of the room where a piece of furniture was covered with a white sheet. He pulled it off to reveal a full-length mirror with a heavy wood frame. Adam moved closer. It had the feeling of something they would explore in their dreams. At the top of the frame there were words and symbols from that Latin-like language from their dreams, written in a rusty brownish substance Adam hoped wasn’t Ronan’s blood.

“Wanna see something?” Ronan asked in an absurdly casual tone, considering he followed it up by walking through the mirror.

There wasn’t much to do but follow. Going through the mirror was a bizarre experience. Adam’s mind didn’t seem to want to process it right. One moment, he was in Ronan’s room. Then everything he thought he knew was stretching and tearing and melding. Then he was somewhere entirely different. The only coherent thought he had on the transition was that he wasn’t especially keen to do it again.

Where they were now felt like a separate kingdom altogether from Aglionby. Ronan had brought them to a land of rolling hills and ancient willow trees, barns and stables and farmhouses big and small, wide open meadows and clear brooks and deer half-hidden within the forest line. It was a place right out of their dreams, only Adam was certain he was very much awake.

“Welcome to the Barns,” Ronan said, spreading his arms only half ironically. “My castle.”

Adam had heard of the Lynch family home. He knew that Declan’s insistence that they lived off the premises, in accordance with the wishes of Niall Lynch, was one of the largest points of contention between the brothers. He could never have imagined this.

Ronan plucked a flower and held it out for Adam. “Look familiar?”

It was a rose, crystal blue the same shade as the brook, that had simply grown right out of the grass with no thorns and a scent like spring mist. Adam had seen these in their dreams. Only he was still certain he was very much awake.

“I can take things out of my dreams. My father could too. That’s how he made this.” Ronan tilted his head in a way that encompassed everything they saw. “It’s not always easy to control. Sometimes, my dreams get bad and I end up bringing something nasty back. That’s how I got these.” He gestured to his arm and neck.

Adam took this in. It defied belief, a little, but somehow this was the most sense Ronan ever made to him. “Does Gansey know?”

Ronan shook his head. “The royal family only knows that my father was a procurer of magical artifacts. They never knew what he could do. I wanna tell Gansey. But I wanna wait until he takes the throne. Until I know he’s the one calling the shots.”

Adam couldn’t argue this. “And...what happened to the thing that did this to you?”

“Six feet under now,” Ronan said, with a little nod to the trees in the distance.

“I could have helped.”

“You don’t want to get involved with this, man.” Ronan’s voice went for dismissive but his eyes were guarded.

“You really think I’m not involved already?” Adam asked, incredulous.

“I didn’t mean for this shit to happen,” Ronan exclaimed, taking a kick at the dirt. “I knew the Scriptum Somnium existed. I remember my father dreaming it. He sold it, and he didn’t bother keeping any kind of fucking record, I have no idea who has it. But the people he sold to were dangerous. Selling to the wrong psychopath is what got him killed. So I dreamed up a version of my own book, so that you could tell whoever the fuck showed up thinking they could add you to their collection of magical shit that they were too late. You, the real you, being able to share my dreams or whatever the fuck it is we’re doing was never supposed to happen.”

“But here we are.”

“Here we are.”

“I understand why you wouldn't want to leave,” Adam told him, because it was all settling into place: how being raised in a place like this made the Ronan Adam knew in his dreams; how the loss of a place like this made the Ronan Adam saw in the waking world. Only now, being here, the lines were blurring. Ronan awake had never before seemed so close to the Ronan from his dreams.

“I was pissed at Declan for keeping us away. Still am. That's part of what brought on the night horror last night. Declan only just found out about the Scriptum Somnium, I guess he thinks he's above that type of gossip, I dunno. But he came to give me an earful yesterday about being more responsible or cautious or what the fuck ever, and he thinks he has the right to bring up dad-” Ronan shook his head. “I wasn't thinking, I was just mad, and strong emotion like that always brings them.” Ronan ran a thumb over the marks on his arm, restless. “He thinks he can just leave this place behind him. Working out the mirror so I could get back here, that was the only thing that made things bearable again. But he has his reasons for not thinking we should stay. Come take a look.”

He led Adam down to a pasture where cow after cow stood, but none of them moved. Adam watched the closest one for several long moments to see that it was breathing, then turned to Ronan questioningly.

“They’re asleep. More of this place is dreamed up than not, and living things that you pull out of dreams…they’re not all the way there, without the dreamer. After my dad died…” Ronan shrugged. “They’ve been like that ever since.” He drew in a breath. “And there’s something else.”

He brought Adam into the main house. In the sitting room was a woman who must have come right out of a fairytale, all long golden curls and petal-red lips. She was settled in a regal-looking wooden rocking chair, asleep.

“This is my mother,” Ronan told him quietly.

A living thing, pulled out of a dream.

“You want to wake her up. You want to wake everything here up,” Adam said, because that was the clearest thing about this situation. “I can help,” he said next, because he had to.

Adam learned more about Ronan in that one visit to the Barns than he'd learned in all the days he’d known Ronan before the visit combined. He’d thought he had a fairly good understanding of who Ronan was, but he’d been wrong: he’d only ever seen part of Ronan, and now he was surprised by how badly he wanted to know what he’d missed.

They returned to the Barns together. They worked on waking dream creatures: it was a slow, abstract, frustrating kind of work, and Adam could only imagine how much worse it must have been for Ronan when he was trying to do it alone. The rush Adam got when the cow they were working with fluttered her eyelashes - even though an objective part of him knew it was a very minimal result, that it had been the barest movement - and when he looked over and saw the soft hint of a smile on Ronan’s lips, the spark in Ronan’s eyes that meant he was feeling the exact same thing, it was worth all the frustration a hundred times over.

They also ate plums, spent whole afternoons taking turns giving each other breakneck rides in the various wheelbarrows scattered all over the property (presumably for this purpose) and explored an overtly mystical cave for the source of the singing. (This was inadvisable. They left the cave the way they found it, with absolutely no intention of going back.)

They still shared dreams, not every night, but most nights, which Adam was glad for. He would’ve missed it if it stopped, which the more practical side of himself deemed an excessively sentimental sort of notion, considering how closely their dreams and reality mirrored one another.

Sometimes their dreams and reality melded so well the difference between them didn’t seem to amount to anything at all. In one of the newer additions to their dreams, a pool the size of a carriage wheel and clearer than glass which seemed to have the ability to show a person's memories, Adam saw a boy of about six years with a head full of riotous dark curls and an even more riotous smile. He had both arms thrown around a baby deer and his entire body was curled in a little bit toward the fawn, like the hug was so big his entire body was required.

“Is that you?” Adam had asked, with a frankly embarrassing amount of feeling.

Fortunately, Ronan seemed equally embarrassed when he rolled his eyes and said in a voice that was trying too hard for casual to actually be casual, “Would you believe me if I said it was Declan?”

The next day at the Barns, Ronan took him to the wood’s edge and gave him a handful of oats. “Since you seemed so interested in deer you might as well feed them.”

They gathered the whole herd to them, and though Ronan wasn’t about to hug any of them, the easy way Ronan stroked his hands over their withers was still far more than Adam thought he’d ever witness for himself.

Adam thought about that pool a lot. Ronan had beautiful memories: days of all-out games of chase, pretending to be pirates or making enormous fanciful beasts out of hay and twine and twigs; nights of bonfires and fireworks, brothers all piled on top of each other for stories and songs. Adam had nothing like that.

He supposed he must look pretty inadequate in comparison. The memories that made up his past boiled down to bruises and the incensed pitch of his father’s voice that meant pain, tears that spilled over once he’d found a place to hide and the jagged-edged thought that no one cared for him here, that he wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, somewhere better.

He knew the stubbornness and exertion it took to survive, to better himself. He had no innate understanding of whimsy, of compassion, of happiness.

This, he theorized in an academic sort of way, was probably at least part of reason why he had trouble believing anyone had a meaningful interest in him, whether it be his ridiculous suitors or...the boy who he’d been spending the majority of his waking and non-waking hours with, who Adam would occasionally catch looking at him with heat in his eyes, who was fascinating and compelling and somehow seemed to think Adam was those things too.

It wasn’t as if Ronan wasn’t being clear enough. He essentially gave Adam free reign of his home, and the times they didn’t have the reserves to do their work at the Barns, he’d taken to hanging around Adam’s hovel, napping or making quips about whatever nobles happened to be visiting the castle or involving himself in Adam’s tarot reading. Ronan steadfastly refused to let Adam do a reading for him (he claimed that soothsayer bullshit gave him hives, which Adam found pretty rich) but he got a real kick out of going through Adam’s books on the subject and telling him what the cards meant when Adam did a reading for himself. (Things like, “This is obviously warning you against your own blind ambition, Parrish. Even the cards know you’ve gotta fucking chill.”)

Ronan had also taken to leaving him peculiar little dream things. (If it were anyone else giving them, Adam would almost be tempted to consider them ‘tokens of affection’?) These things were never offered to Adam directly, and never discussed. Adam just found them odd places. Things like a pale blue candle that, when lit, somehow gave off the exact ideal amount of light and warmth for its surroundings. A wide meticulously engraved cup, or maybe it was a bowl, that was filled with a seemingly endless supply of lavender-scented oil, that didn’t spill no matter how it was tipped. A silver coin with curious markings that created a small but incredibly powerful burst of light when it was flipped. Small bells that sounded more like some sort of fiercely amplified reed pipes that could play through several tunes at the slightest shake. A set of horseshoes that Adam kept tucked away until his foal was ready for them. Ronan called Adam's foal “Parrish’s runt” - the foal was bred from two of the finest horses in the kingdom, but was a failure to thrive, and so Helen had said that if the blood hadn’t come through then the foal was more trouble than it was worth. She'd ended up telling Adam that he could take the foal on as a pet project if he felt up to it, or she'd have to look for another home for the foal - and Adam hadn’t realized that he’d really thought of the foal as his until he’d looked at those horseshoes and pictured using them somewhere down the line. Then of course there were the dream flowers Adam found growing in his garden at Fox Way, seemingly of their own accord.

And then there was the evidence that other people seemed to see it too. Noah always seemed to bring Ronan up in the rare instances that Ronan wasn’t actually there. When Noah had gone so far as to ask Adam what was going on between him and Ronan, and Adam had responded that he didn't rightly know himself, Noah had given a great shrug of his shoulders and looked at Adam with his doleful eyes, and said, “Yeah, I mean, he went and did the the one thing you asked people to do if they want to marry you, it’s a weird situation.” Then he’d drifted away, to let Adam think about that. The psychics were maddening with this, for all that they never said anything outright. When Adam had brought the bowl/cup with him to Fox Way to try to ascertain exactly what it was inside of it, Persephone had only said in her mild way, “It smells like lavender.” Calla had smirked and said, “Looks like you’ve got some snake venom.” Then she’d cackled so hard Maura smacked her in the arm. Even the level-headed Gray Man would pass messages that were meant for Ronan to Adam, or vice versa, as if it were simply understood that telling one was as good as telling the other.

It wasn’t that the signs weren’t there. It was that Adam had something good that he wasn’t prepared to risk losing. It was that Adam wasn’t really sure he had anything to offer in terms of a personal relationship, especially to someone like Ronan, who was raised on love and magic. It was that not talking about it was easier than thinking about how it would work if they tried for more. So they left things as they were.

Of all things, it was Tad Carruthers that helped change this. Or at least, Tad Carruthers’ father, who had gone before the King on behalf of his son, and raised the biggest fuss about how the stasis brought on by the anonymity of whomsoever gave Adam Parrish the Scriptum Somnium was simply unacceptable. The Carruthers family as a whole demanded that the person who’d met Adam’s terms reveal themself in a timely fashion, or Adam’s eligibility for marriage must be reopened.

“What do you think I should tell them?” Adam asked Ronan, during a lazy sort of dream where they were sitting in an open green field, both trying to influence the wind enough to make the dandelion fluff in the air form different shapes.

Adam had known that something like this would be coming, he'd known he should have put more thought into that from the beginning, but he’d let himself be distracted, with how much he enjoyed his time at the Barns and his dreams, which were essentially synonymous.

“To fuck the fuck off?” Ronan suggested, faux-pleasant.

Adam wondered if bringing this up was crossing an ill-defined line. They’d discussed Adam’s suitors before; in fact, mocking Adam’s suitors was one of their favorite pastimes, but that was usually more generalized bitching. If Adam ever brought up specifics from his meetings, they were quick, inconsequential anecdotes. (“Elgin told me he didn’t know anything about the book I asked for, but he said he had a library of more than 5,000 books he was willing to give me.” Ronan, in an outrageous imitation of Adam’s accent: “I’m worth more than 5,000 whole books? I’ve never felt so validated in my whole life.” “Shut the fuck up, Lynch.” “Oooh, the mouth on you, Parrish.”) They’d never discussed anything concrete in terms of Adam going through with choosing a suitor since Adam had received the Scriptum Somnium.

“I’m asking for an actual opinion here, Lynch.” It was foolish, he knew that, but part of him desperately wanted to know where Ronan stood.

Ronan’s face pulled up in a disgusted sort of way. “If you’re not willing to say screw it to the whole marriage thing, then why don’t you just pick someone you at least know isn’t a mass murdering freak.”

“There’s not that many people I want much to do with,” Adam said, only somewhat ironically. “And out of those few, I can’t imagine any of them would really want to be with me, not that seriously.”

“Who the fuck in this kingdom doesn’t want you?”

It was true the level of interest in him was absurdly excessive. Once a drunk patron at Fox Way had gone on at truly extravagant length about Adam’s cheekbones, until Blue had come and kicked the man out. Another time Adam had been visiting the apothecary for Persephone when a finely-dressed girl had made moon-eyes at him from across the shop, and had attempted to guess his star sign. She guessed wrong, and guessed wrong again. After the next wrong guess Adam tried to politely tell her three strikes you’re out but she seemed ready to guess every last sign if it came down to that, so Adam ducked into another shop. Perhaps most memorably, a noble had once approached Adam and, apropos of nothing, informed Adam that he was unmarried and swore on all his lands and titles that he had no bastard children.

But none of that amounted to more than a few moments infatuation from people who felt overly entitled. None of it was real.

“They don’t know anything about me,” Adam insisted clumsily. “And if they did, they’d know…” He didn’t quite have the words to explain. “That I have too much damage to make a good match anyway.”

He felt asinine as soon as he said it, but he was distracted from that by the tempestuous look on Ronan’s face.

“Adam,” Ronan said, but didn’t seem to know how to follow that up. “Shit,” he muttered. “You’ve got to open your eyes. I know seeing a couple of shitty memories doesn’t mean I know what it’s like for you, but you’re here now. You’ve got more power in you than any other magician your age and you’ve got a place at court because you’re driven as all hell and you don’t know how to do anything to less than your fullest potential. With everything you can do, the things you’ve made possible that no one else could come close to, with all the people waiting around the castle or the fucking tavern just trying to get a glimpse of your face or trying to wheedle the tiniest bit of information about you out of Gansey or Blue, you actually think you’re not really what people want?”

Adam looked away. It sounded nice. It was probably the nicest thing he’d heard Ronan say. But he couldn’t really see the truth in it.

“Adam, you’re…” Ronan made a frustrated sound between his teeth. “My dreams didn’t used to be like this, before. Even the calm dreams, the ones with no night horrors, a lot of them ended with me being eaten away by acid or parts of me turning to wood or crumbling like dirt. I didn’t know how to change them, I didn't understand them and I didn't think anyone else would be able to either. I couldn't really imagine anything different on my own. Now look, look what I can do now because you helped make it possible.”

Around them saplings started to grow, surging up from the ground to stand as full-grown trees in a matter of heartbeats. Only they weren’t ordinary trees. Adam and Ronan were now standing in a forest of towering trunks made of bound leather and leaves made up of an abundance of pages. Ink gathered at the edges of the leaves like dew, and every so often a drop would splatter down to the ground, and a new tree would take root. The forest grew, onwards and upwards, filling the air with quiet rustling and the scent of old parchment.

“This is because of you,” Ronan said.

And really, how else was Adam supposed to respond to a gesture like that: Adam kissed him.

All at once he woke up.

He was burrowed in blankets on the front porch at the Barns. They’d decided to dream out underneath the stars and had made themselves a nest of sheets and pillows. Ronan was staring at him.

Adam let out a quiet breath. “I’d kiss you here, too.”

Ronan kissing him was an overload of sensation. Hands pulling him in by the waist, sliding under his shirt to trace the sensitive skin along his ribs. Nips of teeth and Ronan's mouth parting for him when he traced the seam of Ronan's lips with his tongue between stuttered breaths. Heat and moving restlessly against each other and bitten-off groans. Ronan brushing his lips over Adam’s knuckles. Adam brushing his lips over the sharp sprawl of ink on Ronan’s shoulder blades, following the sinuous lines down, down, time passing indistinctly like one of their dreams.

Adam only realized now that he had it how long, how badly, he really wanted it. Even to a natural skeptic such as himself, it felt like they were meant to arrive here. He was glad Ronan was as badly gone as he was.

Later, Adam made a very good case before the King about the importance of keeping his word. He expounded upon the concept that the requirements which they had all assented to for securing Adam's hand in marriage had indeed been met and therefore virtue demanded that he must not consider any other contender. Anyone who may have wanted a chance to propose to Adam was obligated to admit that they would never truly have the first claim if they'd been unable to fulfill Adam's conditions, and so in the interest of preventing future conflict between any potential suitors and whomsoever had earned the legitimate right to Adam's hand, the only fair course was for Adam to wait until the giver the Scriptum Somnium revealed themself so that they could be married, as was agreed. Adam was so eloquent in this argument that he garnered the unequivocal support of the entire royal court.

All in all the kingdom was thoroughly disappointed, which Ronan was viciously pleased by. Adam didn’t care.

He and Ronan had their dreams, and the means to make those dreams their reality. Nothing could stop them.