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Once upon a time, spring was dreadful. Too-early heat and a fateful game of hide-and-seek and a mouth full of hornets and a thousand moments Gansey would never forget — dying, not dying, and everything in between.
But this year was different. Spring was something slower, colder. Chilly fingers reaching across warm mugs of bad tea; memories of meeting Blue last year and the thousand little disasters that led up to the summer they fell in love; graduation, just four short weeks ago, and the sweetness of that promise, that freedom.
This year, spring was all beginnings. Blue leaning over the console of the Pig to kiss him at stoplights. Henry lacing his fingers between Gansey’s at every opportunity. Adam and Ronan, growing together like tree roots, twined and sturdy and flourishing. Even Noah, as ghostly as ever, but getting stronger each day with all the research they did as they figured out a way to give him the second chance he deserved.
Life at every corner, in every atom, in every breath. It was too good to be true, but it was true, and Gansey’s gratitude never ceased.
*
Today, the plan was this: Load Blue and Henry into the Pig and make the two-hour drive to Mount Rogers, where they’d join a hiking group to a campground at the peak and then pitch a tent at the highest point in Virginia, right where the stars met the sky.
Today, the problem was this: Halfway to Mount Roger, the Pig stalled out.
As far as problems came, it wasn’t truly unexpected. But none of the usual coaxing did the trick — no amount of restarting the engine or fiddling with the belts would convince the Pig to pick up its feet and continue on its path.
Henry leaned so far into the hood that his feet lifted off the ground. “Please, Car,” he said to the engine. He knew even less about cars than Gansey, so (as usual) his solution relied on hope and magic. “If you get us to our destination, our next paranormal endeavor will include freeing your trapped soul. I promise you.”
Blue shoved the passenger door open and then slammed it shut again, and Henry scrambled out from under the hood as the car quaked. “Is it dead?” she asked, breath coming in furious little clouds.
“Never dead,” Gansey said, giving Henry a pat on the shoulder for his valiant attempt. “Never for long.”
But, well, they needed it now. And whether dead or just comatose, it wasn’t taking them anywhere anytime soon.
It was disappointing, certainly.
But it was also spring.
So Gansey straightened his shoulders and said, “Jane, pass me my phone.”
Blue did, chucking it to him with a wicked underhand. Gansey only barely caught it, and Henry gave an impressed whistle as he retreated to Blue’s side. While Gansey punched in the number, Henry pressed his nose into Blue’s neck, and she responded with vague grumbling while she roped her 15-foot scarf around him, turning them into one two-bodied creature.
Gansey’s heart lifted like a raven’s wings against the sun. He never tired of watching them, of being with them, of being allowed the privilege to be one third of their whole.
“Gansey?” Adam said into his ear, and Gansey blinked, half-forgetting he had dialed the phone. “Aren’t you camping?”
“The Pig had other plans. Like stranding us on the highway.”
“Oh.”
“I can call a tow, if you’re busy. I just thought—“
“It’s okay,” Adam assured quickly, confidently, and Gansey felt that lift in his heart again. “I’ll bring the BMW and jumper cables.”
“Thank you,” Gansey said. “Hurry, if possible. Henry’s hair gel is dangerously close to frozen.”
Adam exhaled through his nose, like a laugh but softer. “Sure.”
Gansey relayed the news, and Henry cried, “Adam Parrish, our lord and savior.”
But Henrietta was an hour behind them. Even though it was sunny, the wind was starting to wear through their woolen defenses, and an hour was far too long to stay standing on the side of the road. So for now, they climbed back into the car, all in the backseat, all knees and scarves and warm breath.
Already, Gansey lost track of how many moments they’d spent like this, close and curled around each other, one heartbeat running through the three of them. It was as lovely as a memory but with none of the bittersweetness, because he knew he’d have a million more moments just like it. Henry, his arm linked with Gansey’s at the elbow, all the way to their clasped hands. Blue, sprawled across both of them, worming her fingers into their pockets for warmth. It’d be only a few minutes until they had to adjust, limbs turning to pins and needles from poor circulation.
But it’d be a divine few minutes.
Beginnings. Spring. Gansey took a deep breath and let out a contented sigh.
And then Blue said, softly, “Look.”
Gansey wanted to ask ‘Where?’ because there was so much to see. Henry’s lashes, resting lightly against his cheeks, or those cheeks, flushed from the cold and the closeness. Or Blue’s chapped lips, pulled into an irresistible smile, or her eyes, trained up on him only long enough for him to fall in love with her again, only long enough to lead his gaze out the window.
Liquid light fell from the sky. Or, no — snow, with late-afternoon sun shining through it — slow and golden and impossible and wonderful.
Together, they watched snow fall, and every moment, they grew warmer.
*
It was only thirty-eight minutes until the BMW pulled up alongside them, which told Gansey that Adam had brought more than just Ronan’s car.
In the moment it took them to untangle, Adam got out of the passenger seat of the BMW. Gansey met him at the front of the Pig, knocking his knuckles in a greeting and a thanks.
“Can you believe this shit?” Ronan asked through his open window, throwing his hand up to indicate the whole world but also the snow. “It’s April.”
Oh, it was April. The best April. But Ronan and Blue shared a mutual distaste for the cold, so Blue filled Adam’s recently vacated seat so they could commiserate. Or, Gansey assumed they were commiserating. It sounded like an argument, but most of their conversations sounded like that, even when they were agreeing. A moment later, Henry joined them, leaning in through Blue’s window and adding fuel to the fire.
Meanwhile, Adam got to work on the car, talking through the process in hopes of sharing his knowledge with Gansey. Gansey made a valiant attempt at retraining it, but his attention kept being called away. The snow, the light. Blue’s laughter, cackling out of the car like lightning. The line of Henry’s body against the car. The quick flash of Ronan’s smile through the windshield. And Adam — not his words, but his voice, the rounded edge his vowels took when he forgot to work hard containing them.
But then Adam went quiet and still and Gansey’s attention slid back into focus.
Adam was smiling, just a little.
“Yes?” Gansey said, like he had been listening.
But Adam’s smile grew and he knew he’d been caught. “Yes,” Adam agreed, like he knew everything there was to know. “Go start the engine.”
They jumped the car. And they jumped it again. And again. But the car would not live.
“Well, what now?” Henry asked. There was still another hour between them and the mountain, but the hiking group was set to leave any minute.
“Sargent, you’re psychic,” Ronan said, knowing perfectly well she wasn’t, “What do you see in your future?”
Blue scowled and refused to answer. Henry eventually pitched, “A tow truck?”
Gansey sighed, because he was right. Something almost like sadness started to creep through him — not real sadness, but the edge of it, for the lost opportunity of the day. But the sadness evaporated when Adam said, “I have an idea.”
Adam looked at Ronan. Ronan looked back. Gansey held his breath as a conversation happened without words. And then Ronan scoffed and said, “Come on.”
So they pulled the camping supplies from the Pig and loaded them into Ronan’s car. A little while later, the tow truck arrived, piloted by someone Adam knew from work at the garage and trusted to take good care of the Pig. And then Gansey and Blue and Henry tucked themselves into the backseat of the BMW, not the messy tangle from before but a neat little row of penguins.
Ronan grinned into the rearview mirror, threw the shift, and they were off. And then it began: Ronan, Blue, and Henry squabbling over the choice of music. Adam moderating the volume to his level of comfort. Laughter and jeering and bouts of atrocious, off-tune, joyous singing.
As they headed back to Henrietta, the golden hour faded into a night just as bright — stars emerging in the space between clouds and falling to the earth in snowflakes.
Watching his friends all around him, his town out the window, and the universe above them, Gansey’s pulse leapt with wonder. He’d truly never tire of the magic.
*
The Barns was as it always was at its best, beautiful and bursting with life. Vines reached up the roads and trees reached toward the sky with so much intention; squirrels that had huddled under the porch for warmth skittered away as the headlights fell across the driveway; Chainsaw landed on the hood of the BMW before the car was even in the park. With the moon creeping out from behind the clouds, even light and shadows appeared alive.
They were met with chaotic beeping when they opened the front door. It took only a moment to locate the source: Noah, fingers splayed across the buttons of the microwave like keys on a keyboard. At his feet, Opal chewed on a children’s plastic golf club. It was unclear who was meant to be supervising who, but neither was doing a very good job.
But as soon as they entered the room, both Noah and Opal lost focus of their tasks. Opal leapt to her feet — or, hooves — and ran to show Adam the chewed up toy, holding it out proudly like a rescued relic. Perhaps it was, because under closer inspection, it was sun-faded and covered in dirt. Adam appraised it and gave a serious nod, which pleased Opal immensely.
Right behind her, Noah raced over, charging directly into Blue’s arms.
After everything — after Cabeswater and all the deaths and all the relivings, they thought Noah might’ve been gone for good. Reacquiring him was no small task, especially since Adam wasn’t connected to the ley line the way he used to be. But magic was life and there was plenty to go around now, and none of them took it for granted.
Noah pet the spikes of Blue’s hair. “I didn’t know you were coming!” he said.
“We didn’t know, either!” Blue said.
“The Barns is a fucking Motel 6,” Ronan said. But what was the point of this kind of home, if not for exactly this? This crowded kitchen on this too-cold spring night, after plans had failed and friends prevailed? And the contented slouch in Ronan’s shoulders showed that he knew it, despite his grumbling.
“I’m sorry, Lynch, did we interrupt your grand plans to stare over your bounty of land and/or stare into your boyfriend’s eyes for eight consecutive hours?” Henry asked. To prove his point, he bat his lashes at Adam, and Adam rolled his eyes, and Ronan pushed past them with a scowl that functioned like a smile, agreeing that that was exactly what they interrupted.
“Actually, we were making hot chocolate,” Noah said into the top of Blue’s head.
Blue pulled back just far enough to look up at him. “You don’t eat,” she said, her breath clouding once again from Noah’s proximity.
“So?” Noah asked.
Blue grinned, and Noah fell back so he could join Ronan at the counter. Without acknowledgement, Ronan grabbed a few more packets of hot chocolate and a few more mugs to go with them.
Outside, night and snow fell. Inside, they all settled in at the table, everyone armed with cups of hot chocolate stacked high with marshmallows and whipped cream. Even Noah had a cup, just for the smell, which he was enjoying so intensely that he got some on his nose.
The drinks were powdery, too-sweet, and absolutely perfect.
The rest of the night was perfect, too. When all that was left of the hot chocolate had turned tepid, Adam said, “So, about camping.”
“Rest in peace, camping dreams,” Henry said, holding his fist to his chest in a moment of grief. “I guess this place is cool too.”
Ronan just raised his eyebrows and looked out the window. It was dark, now, but Gansey knew the Barns — the wide acres, the endless sky, the buildings and the fields between them.
“Oh,” Blue said, a brilliant grin dawning on her face, like sunrise right there in the kitchen.
It hit Gansey just as quickly. “Oh!” he agreed.
“Isn’t it cold out?” said Noah.
But now Henry had caught on too, and he jumped to his feet, worming between Ronan and Adam’s chairs to pull them both into simultaneous side-hugs. “Brilliant, Parrish,” he said, “Good man, Lynch.”
Adam gave a content smile. Ronan gave a huff, which was the Ronan equivalent.
All together, they pitched the tent, right in the center of the land, right under the brightest stars.
Or, well, Gansey, Blue, and Adam pitched the tent. Ronan ‘supervised,’ which meant sometimes holding a flashlight in their general direction. Henry ran back to the house a few times to grab handfuls of feed, in an attempt to win the favor of local wildlife. Opal sometimes helped him and sometimes sabotaged him. And Noah stood there holding a magic dream heater to his chest like it would be enough to warm his bones.
The snow still fell, but it wasn’t strong enough to stick, and somehow that made it better. It was beautiful and temporary and it belonged to all of them, together, for only as long as it took for them to feel. Like a dream. Like spring.
Slowly, they fell into place. Blankets and sleeping bags; Noah’s heater, eventually pried from his arms for the greater good; six bodies worth of heat (and one almost-body, happily sapping it) crammed into a tent meant for two.
They were a star in the darkness. The cold stood no chance, and Gansey loved it for that.
Once they had been fitted together like puzzle pieces, silence fell. Until Henry said, “Tell us a story.”
He made no attempt to specify who the request was for, but Gansey knew it was for him, so he closed his eyes and tipped his head into Blue’s shoulder. He thought for a moment, but there was no point. After all, there was only one story worth telling. So he took a deep breath and called it all to mind — every one of the magic moments that had brought them to this one. And on the exhale, he said, “Once upon a time…”