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The thing was, for about a month after they got out of that cave, everything was normal.
Okay, not normal-normal, but normal for Blue’s corner of Henrietta. There was the almost-a-love-triangle between her mom, the Gray Man, and Artemus, which no one, not even the people involved in it, quite knew how to approach. And then that got put on the backburner after Gwenllian tried to kill Artemus for a third time and Gansey finally insisted that Artemus move into the first floor of Monmouth Manufacturing. So, still awkward, but there was some distance to it.
And there was sadness, too, but the kind that became a part of her normal routine. Every day there was a moment when Blue would expect Persephone to float into the kitchen and say something simultaneously pointed and mysterious. She got used to feeling like the house was out of balance. Maura and Calla still did readings, but they were unsteady, like Blue when she first learned to ride a bike with two wheels: able to get to places, but always on the edge of falling over and wishing for that other wheel.
But, despite all that: relatively normal. There was no spelunking, Noah was cheerful if not a bit blurry, and Gansey was still regularly saying things that were accidentally offensive.
And then Blue got attacked by a huge bug.
She'd had the late shift at Nino's, which involved taking out the last garbage bags after they closed. Despite the fact that the dumpster was huge, raccoons always found their way into it to eat scraps, so she didn't think much of it when she heard a loud rustling inside the bin.
"Enjoy the leftover crust, guys," she said as she threw in the bags.
As she did, something banged against the side of the dumpster. Not the bang of garbage bags falling, and definitely not a rambunctious raccoon. More of a Something In Here Weighs 200 Pounds bang.
In the time it took for her to grab her switchblade from her bag, something burst out of the dumpster and towards her.
Blue stabbed and slashed at it to the best of her ability, but the directions Calla had given her were prefaced on being attacked by a human, not whatever this was. From what Blue could tell, it had a lot of legs, it smelled, and it was strong. It slammed her to the ground and Blue tried to roll away from its grabbing legs. But it extended a leg to curl around her and throw her to the ground again, and again. Soon, Blue found herself wondering if she should give up. It would probably be a quick death she thought. The thing was making these clicking noises that were almost soothing. I’m so tired. It’s time.
She remembered the corpse road. She remembered not seeing herself on it.
Blue brought the switchblade up with a solid thrust and felt it hit something squishy. The thing roared back in pain and briefly pulled away from Blue. She could see that it was bleeding, but not enough to do any real damage. It also wasn’t as big as she thought; even standing on its many hind legs, she thought it might be shorter than her. But that did nothing to diminish her fear as it started back down towards her. She held the blade in front of her while she struggled to stand (fuck, she had come down hard on that ankle) –
A car passed by Nino’s and its headlights briefly illuminated the scene.
The thing froze over Blue and then disappeared into the woods behind the restaurant.
Like a cockroach when you turned on the lights. A giant, dangerous cockroach that may have given her a concussion.
Blue dragged herself over to the restaurant and sunk down to the curb. She had two choices. She could call 300 Fox Way, get yelled at by her mom and Calla for getting into A Situation, and then be coddled for the rest of the evening while everyone exchanged nervous looks and tried not to think of Persephone. Or she could call the one person she knew who had some experience with these things.
She went to the pay phone and called Ronan.
It was a miracle that Ronan even answered his phone in the first place when he saw an unknown number calling, and even more of one that he picked her up less than ten minutes after she asked for a ride. The BMW roared to a stop in the parking lot, just short of where Blue was sitting.
Ronan swaggered out of the car, announcing “What awful thing do you need done if I’m the one--” He stopped short when he saw her, all the attitude gone. Not even the faint streetlight could hide the fact that, if she looked as awful as she felt, Blue was a mess.
“Who the fuck did this to you?” he demanded.
“Gee, Ronan, I forgot to ask it for a business card,” she responded, limping towards the car.
On the ‘it,’ Ronan’s face filled with fear – or rather the subtle Ronan version of it. “What sort of it?”
“A big bug. Lots of legs, scared of light like a cockroach. Made clicking noises.”
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the fear was gone. “Not one of mine.”
“Good,” she responded. “Can we go to Monmouth and figure out what it was?”
To his credit, he did not ask if she wanted to go home, like Gansey or Adam would have done. Instead, he handed her his phone after she eased herself into the car (and found that the number for 300 Fox Way not in his contact list). Orla was the one who answered, and accepted Blue’s not-lie of “I’m staying at Monmouth tonight, for a research thing,” with annoyed assent.
She handed the phone back to Ronan, who immediately started texting. Blue bit her tongue to stop from making a comment about texting and driving, because in the grand scheme of things, a car accident was no longer the worst thing that could happen tonight.
Blue leaned back in the seat and rested her head against the window. It felt soothingly cool, and she spent most of the ride with her eyes closed, mentally cataloging her injuries. The thumping of the bass line in the music Ronan had playing way too loudly pounded to the same rhythm as her head and made her want to sleep. It wasn’t until they were almost there that she realized they were on their way to Adam’s.
Ronan pulled up outside the little apartment. “Be right back,” he said, not quite looking at her.
She curled into the seat, wondering if Ronan had any ibuprofen in the car. She had just decided that she probably shouldn’t trust any pills she found when she felt hands on her shoulders and almost jumped out of her skin.
“Sorry!” Blue relaxed when she recognized the voice; it was Noah. She turned and saw him in the backseat. His face fell when he saw her. “What happened?”
“Long story,” she said, and then added, “I think I’m okay. Just banged up.”
“Are you sure,” Noah asked, leaning forward to touch her cheek. She winced and he quickly pulled back; she was pretty sure he had touched the future site of a nasty bruise.
“I’m as okay as I can be,” Blue amended. She turned back to look out the windshield and saw Adam and Ronan walking toward the car. Adam was looking at her while Ronan spoke to him, the two of them walking together so close their shoulders were almost touching.
(Blue idly wondered if something was happening there, but she was too tired to think about it.)
Adam slid into the backseat next to Noah. “Blue,” he said softly, a bit of a question behind it.
“Hey,” she responded, holding his gaze. It wasn’t hard, and it wasn’t worried. It was just Adam, analyzing.
“She claims she’s fine,” Noah broke in, which made Ronan snort and brought a small smile to Adam’s face.
“Well, I am,” she retorted, although her body was really protesting that position.
They didn’t speak the rest of the drive the Monmouth, knowing that anything she said would just have to be repeated when they got there. Blue leaned back in the seat, and Noah took the opportunity to stroke her hair, which was way more comforting than she would ever admit.
When they pulled up to Monmouth, Gansey was outside. And he was pacing, actually pacing, back in forth in front of the Pig. Even though it was cold out, he wasn’t wearing a jacket, and that unbalanced Blue almost as much as what had happened earlier. Weird shit happened all the time, but to see Gansey not dressed appropriately for the weather was a shock.
Ronan muttered something under his breath that sounded like “Here goes nothing,” when he turned off the car.
Blue preemptively heaved herself out of the BMW – because by god, no one was going to help her get out of the car – and walked as best she could over towards Gansey.
His face was almost as much a surprise as the lack of jacket. She had expected to see that unwinding look, the come-down from anxiety. Instead, his face was set and he didn’t say anything at first when she stopped in front of him.
“You don’t need to go to the hospital,” he finally asked, voice even.
“Nope.”
(It was his eyes, she realized. They were burning, which did not match any of the Richard Campbell Gansey III faces she knew.)
“And you don’t want to go home?” Blue shook her head, and he sighed. “Okay. You should get cleaned up.”
It wasn’t the reaction she was expecting. Blue really wished he would hug her. That someone would hug her. But instead Gansey just opened the door to Monmouth for her and walked next to her as they went up the stairs, the rest of the boys following behind. Over the sounds of their steps, she thought she could hear them conferring on something.
She was proven right when they got upstairs and Adam immediately said, “Blue, I think there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom,” and started towards it. She followed him, since first aid sounded like a smart idea, but she turned back to see Ronan and Noah converging on Gansey.
She thought she heard Ronan say something like “You know I usually love you when you’re like this, but now’s not the time,” but then she was too far away to hear.
The first thing Adam attended to was the cuts. He had Blue sit on the bathroom counter while he carefully cleaned and bandaged her scrapes.
She had a bunch of road burn from rolling around on the pavement, and she hissed when he removed some gravel from her forearm. “Sorry,” he apologized.
“It’s fine,” she breathed out. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that he was really good at this, but she managed to hold back. He was good – there was an efficiency to his work that Blue knew Calla would have admired – but Blue also knew it was because Adam had done this for himself so many times. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to know about his dad, and she didn’t want to ruin their patched-over relationship by saying the wrong thing.
But any residual awkwardness about being in close proximity had been replaced with clinical purpose. Once he had finished dealing with the open wounds, Adam took a look at her ankle and quickly wrapped it with an Ace bandage. He pulled a bag of frozen peas out of the fridge and handed them to her. “You should elevate your ankle and ice it. I think you just turned it, but better safe than sorry.”
And then he just stared at her, for a solid minute. Blue squirmed, wondering if it was some sort of Cabeswater-powers-thing, that he could fix her just by looking at her. But then he asked “Do you have a headache?”
“Of course.”
“Dizzy?”
“Kind of.”
“Are your ears ringing at all?”
“Um.” Blue hadn’t thought about it, especially with the noise of Ronan’s car. But in the quiet of the bathroom, she was able to hear a faint ringing that she knew wasn’t from the hum of the refrigerator. “A bit.”
“Okay,” Adam said. “You might have a concussion. Your pupils look all right, so I don’t think it’s serious.”
“But,” Blue supplied.
“We should probably keep an eye on you for a few hours,” Adam said. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home?”
“Positive. I like to save panicked lectures for when I don’t feel like I’m going to puke.”
Adam frowned. “That might also be part of the concussion.”
“Great,” Blue sighed. She gingerly got off the counter, being careful to land on her good foot. “Remind me to never do this again.”
“Will do.” They both turned to see Gansey standing in the door. He held up a stack of clothes. “I thought you might want to change.”
Adam looked between the two of them. “I’ll leave you to it."
Gansey stayed in the doorway after Adam left. He looked calmer. “Are you okay?”
“Are you,” Blue countered.
“I’m sorry for earlier,” Gansey apologized. “I know you probably just wanted to see a friendly face, which that wasn’t. As Ronan pointed out, when my friends are hurt, I have a standard operating procedure that is not always helpful.”
“I can’t believe that Ronan talked sense into you,” she said by way of accepting his apology.
“He has his moments,” he said, handing over the clothes. “It’s the smallest one I had,” he added, when he saw the face Blue made at the Aglionby crew team sweatshirt.
If Blue were thinking sensibly, she would have asked Gansey to leave while she changed. But since she could easily blame anything on the concussion, she didn’t do that. Looking straight at him, she pulled off her Nino’s shirt.
Gansey didn’t say anything, but he did take another step into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He kept his eyes on her face, but Blue still found herself wishing for the first time in her life that she owned more interesting bras. But she kept going, taking off her jeans next. When she became unbalanced, he offered her a hand to steady herself.
Blue stood before him for a moment, in her underwear, reveling in the intimacy of the moment. It was dangerous, and definitely not allowed, but as tenuous as her control felt on this situation, it was one of her own making.
She knew it couldn’t last, not with the boys down the hall. So once she was dressed – Gansey helped her get the sweatshirt on, his fingers brushing her cheek – Blue did one last non-sensible thing and took a step forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulled her closer to him.
The last time they had done this, it was after Persephone had died and Blue hadn’t been in the right state of mind to pay attention. But this time she was aware of everything. She could feel his heart beating against his chest, the muscles in his arms as he tightened his hold on her. Everything smelled like mint and she felt like she could do this forever. At the very least, like she should do it more often.
When Blue shifted to take some of the weight off her sprained ankle, she knocked her injured cheek into Gansey’s shoulder and hissed in pain. “Sorry,” Gansey murmured. “I think,” he continued softly, “that if we were in one of those romance novels that Helen claims to read ironically, this is where I would offer to kiss it better.”
“Not really an option,” Blue laughed sadly, but then his mouth ghosted over her cheek and she shivered.
“That will have to suffice,” he said. He was smiling, but it was a tight smile, and as he looked her over she could tell that he was still worried. Blue hated to be the cause of that, even if it was through no fault of her own.
The moment gone, they pulled apart and Gansey held open the door for her. Blue grabbed the bag of peas and Gansey raised an eyebrow. “Are we making a pot pie?”
“They’re for my ankle,” she corrected him. “Do you even have pots to cook with?”
“Yes,” he answered, very defensively, and it made her laugh. The way he smiled in response made her wonder if he hadn’t done it on purpose.
Once they were out in the main room, Noah immediately started fussing over her, moving chairs so that she could prop up her ankle and positioning the bag of peas on it just so.
“Alright, Sargent,” Ronan said, taking another chair across from her. “Story time.”
Blue was too tired to set the scene. “I got attacked by a giant bug in the parking lot of Nino’s,” she said simply.
“And it wasn’t something I dreamed, so you can stop worrying about that,” Ronan jumped in.
“No one was thinking that,” Gansey said, but the relief on his face suggested otherwise.
Adam asked “How giant?”
“About the size of a golden retriever.” As Blue said it, she realized that didn’t sound very big, and given the look on everyone’s face, they agreed, so she quickly added “But it was really strong. And it had all these legs that were able to hold me down.”
“Did it remind you of anything in Cabeswater?” Gansey asked.
Blue thought about it. “No,” she answered. “It didn’t feel like something Cabeswater would make.”
“What about one of the caves, then?” Adam suggested.
That made Blue stop. There had been something familiar, now that she thought about it. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “Like when I was in the cave where I found my mom, but…” Some feeling that reminded her of crossing that lake underground, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
“I know what it is,” a new voice interrupted. They all whipped their heads toward the door to see Artemus standing there.
“Someone woke the third sleeper.”
“It’s a Coraniaid,” Artemus explained. They had sat him in the center of the room, pulling their chairs around to circle him. He leaned forward as he explained, with more passion than he had when he initially asked Blue if she had been badly hurt (although, to be fair to him, she was dealing with her father suddenly being in her life with the same level of finesse that he had when interacting with her).
Blue was surprised to see how comfortable he seemed with them all, even though Gansey had told her that they barely ever saw him. She suddenly understood how her mother had fallen for him; he had a way of getting through your defenses.
“I thought those were typically very small creatures,” Gansey interjected, because of course he knew what those were.
“No, the name has been misinterpreted over the years,” Artemus said. “The language has-”
“Excuse me,” Adam broke in. “Can you please explain what these are?”
“Coraniaids are creatures from Wales,” Artemus told them. “The name is a variation on the word for dwarf, so people assumed that they were small. In fact, they got the name because they were smaller than most monsters in the country.”
“Monsters,” Noah repeated, warily.
“Wales had a few,” Artemus conceded. “The Coraniaids had once been a plague on the country, and King Llud expelled most of them, but a few remained. The third sleeper was one of them.”
“So how did this one end up getting past immigration,” Ronan challenged.
“It found Glendower while he was trying to invade England. It pledged its support to him, which Glendower accepted, although we advised him it was unwise. But Glendower ‘s mind was made. He said we needed to do what the English never would, even if it meant working with our country’s old enemies.”
“Did the Coraniaid work as a spy?” Gansey turned to the others and explained, “They’re supposed to have an incredible sense of hearing.”
“They do,” Artemus said. “This one brought us back excellent information from our enemies. But it disappeared once Glendower was defeated. We assumed that Glendower had bound it through loyalty, but we soon found it that it was bound through a spell. That spell went dormant once Glendower went to sleep.
“The monster managed to follow us here in order to destroy Glendower once and for all. We captured it and sent it to sleep along with Gwenllian. And now it appears that someone has woken it up,” Artemus finished.
“Why didn’t you just kill it,” Blue spoke up.
“They are not easy creatures to kill,” Artemus said sadly. “We were already in Virginia by the time we realized it had followed us, and we did not have the right tools to kill it. It was quicker to put it to sleep.”
Everyone was silent. Finally, Noah spoke up. “That was a dumb idea.”
“We were a bit distracted,” Artemus stiffly said. “But know this: the Coraniaid will stop at nothing to see that Glendower is not woken.”
“Gansey,” said Adam suddenly. “Didn’t you say that this thing has good hearing?” Gansey nodded. “What if it found out that we want to wake Glendower? Maybe it targeted Blue. Seems like a coincidence that it just ran across someone looking for him.”
Blue found herself suddenly boiling with anger. Getting randomly attacked by a not-so-mythical Welsh monster was sucky but fine. But being targeted? That meant it could go after her family, or her boys. She was not going to put up with that.
“How do we stop it,” she demanded.
Artemus sighed. “I do not know-”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” interrupted Ronan.
“But,” Artemus continued, glaring, “I can find out. Er,” he turned to Blue, “It will require working closely with your mother.”
They were doing a lot of this, Artemus and Maura. Consulting her about the other, as though she had a lot of insight into their relationship, despite being a zygote for most of it. “Our house is always open for business,” she said, not taking the bait.
“Although we should probably keep an eye on Gwenllian,” Gansey added.
There was an awkward silence, which Ronan filled with “So. You should probably leave and start researching.”
“Of course.” Artemus got out of the chair and headed toward the door. “I will be in touch soon. Please let me know if you need anything in the meantime.”
He was trying, Blue reminded herself. This would be difficult even without magic, and all that mattered was that he was trying.
It was after ten, and all of her adrenaline had worn off.
Blue wasn’t sure who came up with the idea; she was fighting off sleep on the couch while Decisions Were Made. Adam must have mentioned the potential concussion, because it was declared that she had to stay awake for at least two more hours.
That part was clear; it was how they ended up in bed that was a bit of a blur. One minute everyone was conferring and the next, Ronan and Gansey were moving the TV, Adam was dealing with cords, and Noah was doing a lot of pillow arranging. Suddenly, Blue was guided to Gansey’s bed, everyone else piled in with her, and there was a movie on the TV to keep her awake.
Of course, since they were boys, the movie was Speed.
Blue would have thought that, being the injured party, she would have gotten to choose the movie, but when she voiced that opinion she was quickly shot down.
“You need an action movie to keep you awake,” Gansey said.
“It has a plot that will keep you engaged,” said Adam.
“It will make you appreciate Ronan’s driving,” Noah pointed out.
“And you seem like the type who would like Sandra Bullock,” Ronan finished, almost an accusation.
(Blue did, but she didn’t say that.)
So Blue stayed up and watched a bunch of explosions while the boys made stupid jokes, and the pain in her head went away as the laughter eventually faded into sleepy breathing.
As the credits rolled, Blue surveyed the scene before her. Noah was perched on the headboard, still awake and humming along to the score. Gansey was lying next to her, just close enough that she could feel the heat rolling off him, and Adam was to her other side, farther down the bed. And Ronan was laid out at the foot, legs over Gansey’s and his head on Adam’s lap.
Blue felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to Noah. “I’m gonna go,” Noah whispered. “I’m probably using up too much of your strength hanging around.”
“Thank you,” she whispered back. Noah smiled and dropped a kiss on her forehead. He was the only one who could do it, after all. And then he was gone.
Blue settled back into the pillows and turned towards Gansey. He was watching her and when she faced him he smiled at her sadly. Not for the first time she noticed how tired he looked. He worried about them all the time, she thought. And they weren’t doing anything to make him worry less.
“Think I’m going to risk it and sleep,” she told him.
“I’ll be up,” he said, joking and serious at the same time.
It was funny to see him like this, his voice quiet like it was on the phone at night. It felt like something she had made up, but she was sore in enough places to know it was real.
Quickly, aware that Ronan and Adam were inches away, he took her hand and squeezed it. “We’ll stop it,” Gansey said softly, like a promise.
Blue was sure they would, but looking at him, at all of them, she knew that losing him wouldn’t be worth it.