Chapter Text
One
A soul is a precious thing. An indeterminable thing. A thing that Ronan Lynch wasn’t sure he had or wanted. As he listened to the sermon about soul’s that Sunday, Matthew in the pew between him and Declan, he was a million miles from all of it, with the word soul spelled out in front of him. Soul and Ronan were never in the same sentence unless it came pared with ‘don’t you have a’ or a ‘less’ attached to it.
Adam said scrying is to let his soul wander outside his body, to put his soul into dreams or memories or a different place in time. Adam had a soul, Ronan had proof of it, but he never really doubted it with Adam.
As he walked out of church, Matthew beside him, Declan in front of him on his phone, he looked to see Adam leaned against his shitty try-colored car and Ronan stopped. The day after Whelk was killed, Gansey, Henry, Blue, Adam and Ronan had spent the day together to try to figure out what all of this meant. What it meant that Adam gave his own sacrifice to Cabeswater, what it meant that Whelk had killed Noah to try to wake the Ley Line. They hadn’t talked about why Adam was with Whelk. No one brought it up, but it was a question that hung on them.
“I’ll see you at school,” Ronan said to Matthew and kissed the top of his head.
“Alright, buddy,” Matthew said and rounded to catch up with Declan.
As he neared Adam, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and stopped a few inches too close to the Mechanic.
“Lynch,”
“Parrish,”
“What are you doing today?” Adam asked.
Ronan shrugged and squinted into the sun to try to gage the time. He knew what he should do, he should go back to Monmouth and do his homework, he knew what he needed to do, he needed to dream, but he knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to look at Adam Parrish just a little longer.
“Wanna come to the garage?” Adam asked. “I got some parts for the BMW, but I have a few ideas I want to talk through.”
Ronan knew he didn’t mean ideas about the BMW, he knew he had his own things he needed to think through, but he lifted his chin and rounded Adam’s shitty car and pulled open the passenger side door. Today might turn out better than he thought.