Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s November. It isn’t cold, but not in a way that means it’s warm. In a way that means it’s nothing at all. There’s no breeze tickling over his skin, no heated blood pulsing through him. There’s nothing at all. 

Gansey looks around at the ruins of the church, the crumbling stone and the barren entryway. Gansey doesn’t walk through it. He can’t feel a thing. He can’t feel the ground beneath his feet. He lifts his hand to his face. His fingers graze his nose, his temple—nothing. 

“Who are you?” 

A voice speaks, and Gansey turns to follow it on instinct. Something tugs at his chest, something that feels a lot like warmth or cold or something more to replace all this nothing. 

There’s a girl. 

Dark eyes, dark skin, cropped hair pulled back in bright clips, dress a mismatch of fabrics. Familiar. Her name lingers at the back of Gansey’s mind, but it doesn’t rise to the surface. It stays concealed—buried—in the graveyard mist of churches at night. 

The girl steals closer. Warmth registers as she comes near enough to touch. Gansey wants to. He wants to extend his nothing hand and feel her skin beneath his fingers, but he doesn’t. He’s still like bated breath, still like an unmoving sea, still like footsteps in a haunted room. He’s something eerie. He’s something wrong.

He doesn’t touch her. It’s forbidden. 

“Please,” she whispers. Then she touches him. Gansey’s first breath shocks him. His inhale is shaky and broken. It rattles through him as her static touch turns blazing, turns to fire. He’s burning. She asks, “Will you tell me your name?” 

“Gansey,” he says. His voice is as loud as it can be, which means: barely audible. 

The girl looks at him. She’s seeing parts of him that are no longer there. She whispers, “Is that all?” 

Gansey’s eyes shut. Glendower. Demon. Death. “That’s all there is.” 

Gansey falls to his knees. His hands find the cool earth of the grounds of the church. 

He remembers this. Not because he’s lived this moment before, but because he’s heard himself live this moment before. On a recording device. On a night or a day just like this one. Many weeks or many months before. None of it is his anymore, so none of it is certain. It’s the ghostly whisper of possessions long since passed on. He’s given it all away. 

He’s given himself away. 

But then, the night or the day changes. The girl disappears, pulling her warmth out from under Gansey as she goes. He braces himself for the aching pain of neutrality, of nothingness. But it never comes. Instead, the ground shifts. The dirt beneath his desperate hands comes to life, sprouting with blooming vines and forest roots. His fingers are entwined with ropes of green, pulling him further, further, further down. Further into a next that cannot be comprehended. 

The first prick stings, but the second doesn’t. The roots pierce his skin and enter his veins. They weave and wind up his arms and towards his heart. They wrap around the organ and squeeze. His heart beats for the first time in several loops of the same repeated minute. 

Somewhere, he wakes up. 

Gansey maintains that, though he hadn’t died that night, one of his incongruous parts had. Virginia wealth or the finder of things long hidden, part of him was lost that day. Or, possibly, it’s not that bleak. Possibly they were united. Possibly it was the distance between his two halves that died. 

It’s July, and he’s different now. A stranger to himself, and yet an old friend returning from the war. He’s the same as he’s always been, and yet everything has changed. Because the nearness of death is no longer a guarantee or a promise. Because his clock is no longer racing ahead to meet its forever end. 

The future, Gansey thinks. That’s what they call this. 

This. 

The road stretches on ahead. The orange car glows under the blinding heat of the Henrietta summer sun. The five friends gather for what won’t be the last time, but will be the last time for a long time. 

Gansey bumps his fist against Adam’s. Adam says, “You’ll write, won’t you?” 

It’s a parody of every fictional parting they’ve ever read. Gansey laughs, “Of course, dear.” 

But he won’t write Adam any letters. He’ll text or call, like a normal person from this century. He might resort to writing Ronan letters, though. If he’s as stubborn about his phone as he’s always been. If Gansey is desperate enough to beg for word from him. 

Parrish snorts. He says, “Never would’ve thought you’d be leavin’ Henrietta first.” 

“Me neither,” says Gansey. He’s surprised by it too, but it’s the pleasant kind of surprise. It’s the kind where Adam is no longer filled with the urgent, anguished need to flee. It’s the kind where Gansey is no longer flushed with the clawing, miserable need to stay. It’s the kind where they’re settled, stabilized. 

Gansey, who has wanted nothing more than to stay enveloped in Henrietta forever, is leaving a month and half earlier than Adam Parrish, of all people. But he’s leaving with Blue and with Henry. That’s the most important part. He looks to them now. Blue, somehow, has Ronan in a headlock. Henry stands a few feet away from all four of them, watching and observing with a half tilt to his lips. Gansey feels his own mouth twitch like a mirror. 

Gansey turns back to Adam, but Adam’s not looking at Gansey. He’s looking at Ronan. Gansey thinks: I understand. 

Adam and Gansey don’t say anything else. Words have never been their strong suit, their language. And so, Gansey jostles Adam’s shoulder. Adam leans his weight against him for an infinitesimal second of support, of taking. Then, they part. 

Ronan approaches. His fingers splay as Adam walks past him to get to Blue, like he can’t help himself in reaching, in straining for just a glimpse of contact. Gansey pretends he doesn’t notice the intimacy, but, within himself, he’s glad they have each other. Gansey feels better leaving, knowing he’s not leaving either of them alone. 

Ronan stands in front of him. He scuffs his foot in the dirt. He swallows like it’s an entire ordeal, like he’s in a fight with his own throat. He asks, “Gonna ask me to dream you the world?”

“Nah,” Gansey says. “Just don’t kill my mint plant.” 

Ronan nods. It’s awkward in the way that any heartfelt moment between two adolescent boys would be. It’s heavy with the memory of death still hanging over both of them—even eight months, two years, eight years on. 

“I’m coming back,” Gansey promises. He can feel the truth of the statement, the same way he could hear the whispering of the trees the first time they stepped foot inside Cabeswater. 

Ronan knows he wouldn’t lie, especially not about this. Ronan’s posture eases, tension bleeds out of his shoulders. He kicks again, but this time he’s aiming for Gansey’s shin. Gansey dodges with a peel of laughter. 

And then, it’s time. 

It’s Gansey in the driver’s seat, Blue in the passenger seat, Henry in the backseat. It’s the three of them in a car dreamt by Ronan, in a car Adam has taken to calling the Pigeon—an in-joke that makes Gansey swell with pride, with happiness every time he hears it. It’s a year of traveling, and this is just the beginning. 

It’s starting. 

They’re only half an hour south of Henrietta, down I-85, when Blue asks to stop, begs off about small bladders. Gansey should probably be bothered by the inconvenience, but he just says, “sure,” and turns off at the next exit. 

This isn’t a trip of efficiency, is the thing. This isn’t even a trip with a goal, as all of Gansey’s other travels have been. There’s no pressing of the ley line at his back, no thoughts of Glendower lodged and choking in the base of his throat. There’s just the open road and freedom and twelve months to go. This is the three of them sharing space and time for an entire year. This is ample opportunities to get on each other’s nerves, to learn every button and then push them, to burden with every small inconvenience. 

Gansey is more excited than he’s ever been in his life. 

He finds a Sheetz and pulls into a parking spot—the best part of a car with no engine? No stopping for gas. Blue slips out of the Camaro with an impulsive kiss to Gansey’s lips and a call of, “BRB!” 

Gansey blushes down to his chest, red tint disappearing beneath the collar of his polo. (He should be used to the affection. He’s not.) Henry kicks the back of his seat, in acknowledgment or teasing. Gansey sighs, contented. He tips his head against his headrest and breathes this moment down. Real, real, real. He has to keep reminding himself, has to work to keep himself here in the car and not stumbling to the ground in the ruins of a churchyard. It’s so easy to let time go circular, go funny. It’s so easy to dwell in those hours of death and destruction and decay, but Gansey wants to be here. He wants to be in the Pigeon with the wheel beneath his hands and the sun hot against the windshield. He drums his fingers in a soft, simple rhythm. He uses it to count the seconds forward instead of back. 

Five minutes pass in easy quiet, neither Henry nor Gansey saying anything. Five minutes pass, and Blue returns with a smile and a packet of Skittles. She leans into the car, but doesn’t get into the car. 

“C’mon,” she says to Henry, “in the front.” 

Gansey’s curiosity spikes, but he doesn’t swivel around to look at Henry. He flicks his eyes to the rearview mirror, finds him in the reflection instead. Henry looks a little paler than usual and his hands are white knuckled in their intensity. Gansey frowns. 

“Oh,” says Henry. 

Blue says nothing. Gansey says nothing. Henry climbs out of the back of the car, lets Blue take his spot, and then he takes hers in the passenger seat. 

None of them say a word. 

Gansey starts the car, pulls out of the parking lot, and merges onto the highway once more. As he drives, he assesses the situation. Color returns to Henry’s cheeks and his hands go lax in his  lap. He’s looking out the window, watching the scenery blur by as his chest rises and falls with even, easy breaths. Whatever discomfort Henry was experiencing before, whatever anxiety Blue noticed that Gansey didn’t, abates now that he’s up front. It’s an obvious conclusion to be drawn—the source of the nerves and the horrific memories Henry was silently reliving in the backseat of a car, refusing to ask for help—but Gansey doesn’t dwell. Henry is settled, so Gansey settles too. 

Blue fixed it. 

In the backseat, she sorts and shares her Skittles. Gansey gets all the orange and Henry gets all the purple. 

The first official stop of the trip takes them off I-85 and onto I-40—where most of the first section of their travels will remain. They swerve west from Durham towards Asheville, to Pisgah National Forest and a sigh of relief as nature swallows them whole. 

Blue is different within the hiking trails, with trees framing either side of her. It’s the melting of the kind of tension that one doesn’t notice is there until it’s gone. Her fingers scrape along the edges of tree bark as she reaches out to touch. Gansey is reminded, distantly, of the way Ronan reached for Adam earlier. Instinctive. Her steps are soft and careful as she avoids winding roots, less about not tripping and more about moving with kindness and consideration. She keeps looking over her shoulder, too, at Gansey or Henry, with the biggest smile on her face. She looks at home in these woods, even though she’s never stepped foot outside of Virginia before today. 

Gansey’s in love with her. 

That much is obvious, that much he has known since long before it was right to feel that way. That much has been true, Gansey thinks, since the moment he met her. Since before he met her, even. Considering the way he experiences time, it’s not outside of his realm of possibility. 

It’s a nice thought. 

They, eventually, find a small, secluded waterfall. It pours into a stream that trickles over rocks and carves a path through the earth. The sound of it is mesmerizing. It floods Gansey’s senses as he imagines he can feel the rush of water tickling over his skin, splashing him with mist, coating him in belonging. 

Henry does dip his fingers into the water. He flicks some of the droplets at Blue. She laughs and tells him to knock it off. 

Gansey retrieves a water bottle out of his backpack, downing half of it in one go. Blue snatches it from him and drinks the rest. There are five other water bottles between the three of them and their packs. It’s not necessary to share, but it thrills in Gansey’s stomach as he watches her throat bob. Sweat sits at her collarbones and decorates her temples. Gansey’s mouth feels dry again. 

Blue passes the empty cantine back to him. She grins at him. He can’t tell if it’s knowing or just pleased. Probably it doesn’t matter. 

They stay at the water’s edge longer than they should. They should continue their hike. They should weave deeper into the woods, following the call of nature into its heart, but they don’t. They stay at the water’s edge long enough for Henry to get his camera out. 

Gansey bought him that camera. Technically, it was a graduation gift. Really, it was a thanks for sticking around even though your mom doesn’t really need you in Henrietta anymore gift. Graduation gift has a better ring to it. 

Gansey watches Henry line up his shot. He imagines what the picture will look like: the dappled light through the trees, the water reflecting the sunshine, Blue’s perfect silhouette against the rocks and the wilderness. Gansey thinks it probably belongs in a museum. 

Blue doesn’t notice Henry until she hears the stuttering sound of the photograph being taken. She spins around quickly, but the damage is done. She doesn’t look angry, though. She looks amused and surprised. Touched, almost. She sticks her tongue out at Henry anyway. Henry laughs and snaps another picture. 

Gansey got Blue a graduation gift too. He’s not sure if she accepted it because it was practical—for the trip—or because her apprehensions about his wealth and hand outs have eased with the passage of time and furthering of their relationship. Probably that doesn’t matter either. He got her a cooler and a package of reusable plastic spoons. The cooler is back in the Pigeon now, stocked with the essentials: yogurt and more water. 

“Time to keep going?” Blue asks. She rocks up onto her toes and back down to her heels. It’s absolutely ridiculous how much that derisory movement affects Gansey. 

“Sure,” he says. 

They keep going. They walk further into the forest. Until their feet ache and their stomachs grumble. Until the insatiable need for nature is, miraculously and temporarily, sated. 

First day, first stop, first motel. The motel comes in the shape of an agreeably cheap place just fifteen minutes away from Pisgah National Forest. Prior to checking in for the night, they stop at a grocery store. They buy pre-made sandwiches for dinner and load up on a few snacks, too. Before long, though, they’re at the motel. 

The room is nicer than Gansey expected, considering the price point. Wisely, he doesn’t say that out loud, of course. He keeps his ignorance to himself as he enters the room, drinking in the TV mounted to the wall, the mini fridge tucked under a desk, and the two beds pressed close together. There won’t always be two beds, Gansey is sure. They have no exact timeline for their trip, so it’s near-impossible to book in advance. Instead, they’re taking what’s available and shrugging off the burden of shared space. Gansey’s not bothered by the thought. He’s slept tucked in close to Ronan too many times to care. 

Henry flops down onto the nearest bed with an excessive, guttural groan. He bemoans, “My feet. I’m going to die.” Then, he lifts his head enough to look at Gansey, “Sorry, Richard-man, I know that’s a sensitive topic for you.” 

Gansey makes a rude gesture and Henry laughs. Blue rolls her eyes and shoves deeper into the room, to the other bed. Gansey, trying not to think too much about it, joins her at the edge. (Because, apparently, it doesn’t bother him to think about the three of them sharing a bed, but just him and Blue? That’s enough to set his nerves ablaze. He can feel his teeth.) Blue accidentally elbows him in her attempts to get her hiking shoes off. She doesn’t apologize. Gansey loves her. 

They eat their grocery store sandwiches in tired, sweaty, exhausted silence. 

Henry is the first to slip off to shower. The water runs loud through the thin walls, an accompaniment to the shallow evening. Gansey says, “This is nice.” 

“What is?” Blue asks. She squirms in a way that suggests she wants to lay down, but, for some reason, is holding back. It takes Gansey a moment to realize it’s because of the wear of the day on her clothes and her skin, an attempt at polite consideration of the bed that isn’t just hers, the bed she’s going to be sharing with Gansey tonight. 

Gansey falls to his own back, grabs Blue’s wrist, and gently pulls her down beside him. They stare up at the ceiling. Gansey doesn’t let go of her wrist. 

“All of it,” Gansey answers, finally. “It’s all nice.” 

Blue hums in agreement. “Yeah, it is.” 

If Gansey were normal, if Blue were normal, this is the part where they’d turn to each other and kiss. Instead, they turn to each other and maintain their safe two inches of distance. Gansey can feel Blue’s breath on his chin. It skates shivers down his jaw and neck. His teeth hurt. He wants. 

He doesn’t move. Blue doesn’t move. 

Henry starts loudly singing in Korean. Gansey laughs. Blue laughs. The moment passes, swept away as the shower keeps running in the background. 

Gansey is the last to wake on the second day. He rouses to the sight of Blue slipping on today’s perfect monstrosity of a shirt made of two tank tops interlaced to become one in a way that makes Gansey’s head hurt. Gansey closes his eyes quickly. He pretends he never saw that strip of skin between stomach and bra, that stretch of skin that he’s never paid witness to before now. He’s never going to survive this trip. 

Gansey doesn’t mean to fall back asleep, but he does, for at least a few minutes. He’s woken again as the door opens more harshly than should be necessary at—Gansey glances at the clock on the bedside table—9 AM. Henry bursts into the room like he wasn’t more exhausted than both Blue and Gansey after yesterday’s hike, with a blinding smile on his face and more energy than seems possible. Gansey finds he doesn’t mind the sudden, jarring wake up. He likes seeing Henry like this. 

Henry moves past Blue, who has moved on to doing her hair in a mirror above the room’s desk, and moves to stand in the aisle between the two beds. He has two plastic cups in his hands, one goes straight to the table next to Gansey. He says, “Coffee, for the gentleman.” 

Gansey smiles up at him easily. He says, “You’re a prince among men.” 

Henry does a little bow, made silly by the way his spiky hair barely moves with the change in gravity. 

Gansey, after an indulgent stretch, sits up in the springy motel bed. He takes a sip of the coffee. It’s iced, which is good, considering the heat that’s waiting for them outside. Gansey tries to use the strong, bitter taste to keep his mind present. He tries to forbid himself from slipping back to Aglionby and Gansey retrieving a coffee for Henry and scaffolding coming down around Adam. The memory holds no bearing on this midsummer morning and this slow rise in the beginning of a trip Gansey knows he’s going to miss when it’s—

Henry’s sitting at the side of the other bed. He stretches his feet out enough to nudge Gansey’s mattress. The subtle change in sensation, the easy movement, brings Gansey back to now. He takes another gulp of coffee. He focuses on the cold spreading down his body, down to the pit of his stomach. He does it again, takes another large sip. He finds his glasses on the bedside table. He looks at Henry properly. He opens his mouth to thank him. Henry nods before he can say a word. Gansey simply nods back. 

Gansey, absentmindedly, starts peeling the motel’s sticker logo off the plastic of his coffee cup. Blue draws his attention to the movement when she says, “You better not leave that somewhere for someone else to clean up.” 

“Yes, Jane,” Gansey says, with a smile tucked between sheepish and amused. Blue turns back to the mirror. 

Gansey peels the sticker the rest of the way off, leaving it only slightly torn but mostly whole on the edge of his thumb. He procures a leather-bound journal—new, but not new looking; empty, but not empty for long—and places the sticker on the back of the first page. He presses down the edges so it lays flat and a little crooked in orientation. It’s a temporary marking for day two, a half started and half aborted plan to fill this journal with documentation of their travels. Gansey closes the journal and puts it back in his bag. 

“When are we heading out?” Gansey asks. He looks between Blue and Henry, even though the two boys both know the question is directed more towards Blue than anyone else. 

“Now,” Blue says. She hands Gansey a half eaten yogurt, fruit left untouched at the bottom and entire container previously abandoned on the desk as she got ready. “So hurry up.” 

Gansey takes a bite, off her same spoon, and finally pushes himself up and out of bed. He says to her, “Yum,” and, “Okay.” 

“You guys are gross,” Henry says. 

Blue and Gansey both shrug. 

Gansey: Happy birthday, Adam Parrish. 

Adam Parrish: Thank you, Gansey. 

The further they get from Henrietta and the further they get from Adam and Ronan, the more untethered Gansey feels. He can explain it to himself a hundred different ways—Henrietta is the first place he’s ever belonged, so of course he’s going to experience a homesickness like he never has before; Ronan and Adam are, really, the only reason Gansey is alive, so of course he’s going to feel… out of sorts without them—but it doesn’t help. It doesn’t ease the ache, it doesn’t make it better to know that it’s rational. 

It doesn’t feel rational. 

It, also, doesn’t help that Blue and Henry seem fine in that regard. Henry, Gansey expects it from. Henry’s lived away from home and away from his mother for over a year. Henry doesn’t have much in Henrietta in terms of things to be left behind. Blue, though… Blue has never left home, has never left the state, has never gone this long without seeing the women of 300 Fox Way—well, that’s not entirely true. She did go several months without seeing her mother, when Maura took off into the cave systems of Cabeswater, but that was different. This is Blue being the one to leave. This is Blue leaving home for the first time, and she doesn’t seem affected by the fact, worn by the distance as Gansey is. 

Gansey supposes she could be hiding it well. But he hopes that isn’t the case. He hopes she really is so happy to be here, with them, that she can barely find the space within her to be missing home as badly as Gansey is. Gansey doesn’t want Blue to feel this way. It’s miserable. 

It’s miserable and it’s only been three days since they left. Gansey doesn’t understand why he’s so different from Blue or Henry. 

He’s never going to survive this trip, Gansey thinks again and again. It runs through his mind like a broken record. Unstoppable. 

But then, Blue takes his hand or Henry comes up with another ridiculous iteration of his name and Gansey… Gansey is never going to survive this trip ending. He needs to travel and he needs to do it with these two people. He needs this to last forever. He needs life to be like this always, the landscape ever changing but the company never ebbing. He needs, he needs, he needs. 

Gansey didn’t think anyone had really noticed—or, at least, cared about—his notebook and the sticker placed between its pages in the motel outside of Asheville, North Carolina. But, at the next motel, in the next small town, in the next state, Henry retrieves a strangely small electronic device out of his bag. Gansey doesn’t yet know that it’s something he should be paying attention to, so he’s not. 

Instead, Gansey is paying attention to the rise and fall of Blue’s breathing. She fell asleep almost as soon as they got to the motel tonight. She mumbled something about Tennessee and damn July and slipped out of consciousness. Gansey’s certain she’ll wake soon enough, searching for food and ravenously hungry after accidentally skipping dinner. For now, though, Gansey just watches her sleep. She didn’t make it to the shower before exhaustion overcame her, so the short curls around her face are stuck to her skin with sweat. She didn’t change into clean clothes, so her shorts are stained a little with dirt and her crochet shirt is twisted obscenely around her torso. 

She’s gorgeous. She’s resting. She’s safe. 

Gansey watches her breathe, watches her hair clips slide out of place as she moves, watches her tuck in closer to his leg like it’s instinct to be near to him. Gansey feels a bit sick. 

There’s a gentle whirring from the other side of the room. It’s just loud enough to jog Gansey’s focus, to pull him out of his love sick reverie and into broader awareness. He looks over his shoulder, finds Henry on his bed with the aforementioned electronic that Gansey had barely registered before. 

“What’s that?” he asks. The part of him that’s still seeking magic at every turn imagines that it’s a dreamt object, something Niall Lynch sold to Seondeok before his death. The logical part of him sees a barcode not yet peeled off the back. 

“It prints photos,” Henry says. The whirring stops and the last picture is added to the stack already in Henry’s hand. They’re barely the size of a polaroid, little rectangles of memories. Henry offers Gansey the photographs in an outstretched hand. 

“Why’re you giving them to me?” Gansey asks. He feels stupid, like he’s missing something obvious, like he’s so distracted tonight that not even his glasses could make him see the world clearly. 

“For your journal,” says Henry. His voice is quiet, braced. 

Gansey takes the pictures. He says, “Thank you.” 

Henry pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek, then stops as soon as he realizes what he’s doing. He readjusts his legs, draws them nearer to him. He looks away from Gansey, returns his attention to the printer. It’s all a secret, unspoken language. It all means you’re welcome and don’t mention it and please don’t make me feel weird about this. 

Gansey doesn’t. He gets out of bed—loath as he is to pull his leg away from Blue—and gets the journal from his bag, alongside a handful of pens and paper clips and sticky notes. He sets up at the small, round table by the motel room’s only window. Without another word to Henry, he begins to assemble the journal, documenting the first week of their road-trip across the United States. 

He begins with their departure. He scribbles the date at the top of the page and draws a terrible doodle of a pigeon. He traces a map of I-85 onto a sticky note, using his phone screen as a guide through the thin yellow sheet. He presses it into the page and uses an extra piece of tape to secure it. He writes about Pisgah National Forest and adds another doodle of a waterfall. He clips the first and second picture into the page. Then, he turns to the next. 

On and on Gansey works. On and on until he reaches July 9th and the Gatlinburg Trail. On and on Gansey works until the entirety of their trip, thus far, is embedded into the pages of a leather-bound journal—not new and not empty, not anymore. On and on Gansey works and, as he does, he feels time swell, swell, swell. It swells and pulses and arcs like a rainbow within him. Until July 9th and the present day. Then, and only then, it deflates all at once. All at once, the past falls away and the present is secured in Gansey’s mind with a paper clip. 

The task grounds him in a way that nothing else can. 

When Gansey is done, he flips through the pages. He takes note of every picture. The first two: Blue turned from the camera with a waterfall wrapped perfectly around her shoulders, Blue turned towards the camera with her tongue stuck out. The third: a flaming piece of cake in a pizza joint even crappier than Nino’s (for Adam’s birthday, of course). The fourth and fifth: Blue in the backseat of the Pigeon with her eyes closed, Gansey behind the wheel of the Pigeon with his eyes open. The sixth: a sunset or a sunrise, depending on how one looks at it. The seventh: Gansey with his glasses shoved onto his forehead because the humidity of this particular hike made them fog up. The eighth: three birds flying in tight formation. The ninth: Blue and Gansey tucked in one bed like one shared spoon, the morning light filtering through the blinds. 

“These are all really good, Henry,” Gansey says. Because it begs to be said. 

Gansey has his back to Henry, which is always a terrible choice when trying to talk to him, but he doesn’t turn around to look. He keeps his eyes on the last picture. He says, when it becomes obvious Henry isn’t going to speak, “Except this last one is a little creepy, don’t you think?” 

“Don’t pretend you’re not obsessed with it, Dick,” Henry says, silence broken. There’s a laugh to his words. Nonchalant, calm. 

Gansey looks at him then. He says, “I am.” For the second time tonight, he says, “Thank you.” 

Henry doesn’t go through the same dance as before. This time, he just says, “Yeah.” 

Blue stirs on the bed, making a soft noise in her sleep. Gansey closes the journal, puts it back in his bag for now, and joins her again. It’s easy, on a night like this, to tuck in close to her. They’re a mirror image of that ninth picture of Henry’s. Gansey, for some reason, hopes Henry notices that too. 

Tennessee takes them to Fiery Gizzard Trail where a sign reads with, “Hike to Raven’s Point.” For a moment of silence, the three of them stand and stare at the sign. Then, they stand and stare at each other. Then, Blue starts laughing and Henry follows suit. Gansey doesn’t laugh, but he does smile. He takes a picture of the sign. Before they begin their hike, he sends it to Adam. Caption: Coincidence. 

He loses signal as they hike up Fiery Gizzard Trail, but he’s none the wiser. He’s too busy taking in every moment of this endeavor: the moss clinging to the trees, the sound of the path crunching under their hiking shoes, the warmth of the summer painting them with signs of life (hearts beating, arms sweaty). 

It’s a long hike, 4.6 miles to their destination. The hours pass as most of their trip has passed: comfortably, happily, contentedly. Blue is either talking adamantly or so wrapped up in her surroundings that she seems hardly aware of their presence—there’s no in between. Henry is quiet and taking pictures. Gansey is watching both of them, memorizing the details of Blue and Henry as much as he’s memorizing the details of this path, this tree, this particular sky. 

Raven’s Point, it turns out, is a lookout spot. It’s a rock that juts out of the mountain, framed by spindly trees that grow over and around the edge of the formation. It overlooks the tumbling greenery of South Cumberland State Park, home to perfectly green trees and juxtaposing peaks and valleys. Gansey loses all movement. He freezes as he stands near the edge, and it’s not because he’s afraid of heights. It’s the view. It’s the vastness of the earth. It’s the memory of Cabeswater pulsing in his chest and through his veins at all times, even the ones that came before. It’s the collision of all moments, all times, all feelings leading to this one. 

“Gansey Boy, don’t jump,” Henry says. It’s barely a joke. It sounds a little genuinely concerned. 

Gansey takes a step back. He whispers, “Sorry.” 

He can still barely move, barely look away. It’s awe, more than anything else. It’s reminiscent of the way he’s felt about every forest, river, mountain they’ve come across so far—or, really, that he’s ever come across. It’s admiration. It’s adoration. It’s love. Gansey loves this. He loves this view, he loves the taste of nature in the back of his throat, he loves this trip. He loves this freedom. He loves this life—his third and his last. 

They stand there, at Raven’s Point, for a long time. Gansey knows it’s because of him, knows Blue and Henry must be impatient with waiting, but he can’t bring himself to leave. He stands as close to edge as he can get without scaring himself or his travel partners. He looks out at the never ending sea of green. He breathes and breathes and breathes. It’s not automatic, as it should be. Instead, it’s mechanical and conscious. It’s Gansey telling himself: breathe, breathe, breathe. If he didn’t, he would hold his breath. If he didn’t remind himself, he would stand here until his lungs gave out and his body dropped to his knees. 

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. 

Blue touches his arm, just below his elbow. She’s so gentle, but Gansey startles anyway. He blinks and a fog clears. He inhales a little deeper and his mind rights itself, realigns itself, finds itself again. 

She asks, “You ready, Gansey?” 

When she says Gansey she really means love. When Gansey answers, “yes,” he really means no. 

They start back down the mountain anyway. As they go, they run into a few other hikers—their presence jars at Gansey, nudges at him in a way that wrinkles—and Henry says, as they pass, “Make way, make way.” 

For the Raven King. 

After that, Gansey has to, again, remind himself to breathe. The entire 4.6 mile return trip is marked by his labored and focused inhales and exhales. Breathe, breathe, breathe. It only becomes automatic when they eventually reach the bottom of the mountain, when the edges of civilization greet them, when phone signal finds them. Gansey instantly forgets what it felt like to force his lungs to do as they’re supposed to instinctively do. 

When they get to the Pigeon, Gansey finally receives Adam’s response. 

Adam Parrish: Meaning that it wasn’t. 

Henry keeps his hands in fists more often than not. Gansey doesn’t think it’s a conscious effort, not something he’s doing on purpose, not something he realizes. But when Gansey is letting Blue drive or when they stop at greasy diners for dinner or when they find a cheap enough motel that no one—meaning Blue—can protest staying there, Gansey watches. 

Gansey watches all of his friends more than he should, so it isn’t, necessarily, any different with Henry. It isn’t any different, except for the fact that Henry is newer to Gansey. They’ve known each other properly for eight months and been acquaintances for even longer, but it doesn’t feel like enough. There’s still so much Gansey doesn’t know. There’s still so much to learn. It’s like the beginning of a new mystery: every hint and clue makes Gansey’s pulse shake, makes anticipation and adrenaline churn through him. Henry is a string that hasn’t yet been unraveled, a riddle that hasn’t yet been solved. Gansey could fill a journal with his observations about Henry Cheng, and, even then, he still wouldn’t ever feel finished. 

Henry keeps his hands in fists, at his side or in his lap or—occasionally, at the lowest of times—tucked up under himself. His fingers curl in on each other, his knuckles wind tight and stain white with the tension that is always, always, always there. 

Henry talked about the kidnapping so easily when he brought Gansey into that cramped basement, into the hole in the ground of Aglionby Academy. He put Robobee in Gansey’s hand and talked to him about the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He spoke about it like it was their upcoming class assignment, or as if they were true friends at the time, or as if none of it mattered. Henry spoke about it like it was inconsequential. 

Gansey knows better now. He should have known better then, but he didn’t quite realize the gravity of it all—the falsities of Henry’s grandeur and brashness—until the night Henry met the Gray Man for the first time. Gansey saw Henry in his fading Madonna t-shirt and a fading complexion stricken with fear. He understood it then. He understood that he and Henry are the same in so many ways: in trauma and risk and the fear of it all always, always, always.  

So, now, Gansey knows it isn’t easy. It’s just that Henry hides it better than most. Pretends almost as well as Gansey himself does. 

But his hands keep giving him away. His hands keep curling into fists and Gansey keeps imagining the blood on those knuckles, between the rest stop and the side of the road on that night. Gansey wonders what their goal is. He wonders if they’re curled inward to protect the vulnerable digits, or if the fists are bracing for a fight. He wonders if it’s defense or offense. He wonders if Henry is prepping for a threat or prepping to throw a punch. 

Gansey doesn’t get his answer until they’ve reached the western half of Tennessee. Blue is driving—very, very slowly—and Gansey is observing. Henry is sitting in the front, as has become routine since that first day on the road, and his hands are curling in and out, in and out. It’s like his hands have lungs of their own, like they’re breathing. Inhale, exhale. His fingers are expanding and then furling back in. Again and again and again. 

It’s mesmerizing, captivating, bewitching. Until it isn’t. 

Henry’s thumbs are inside his fists. Gansey knows first hand that that’s a great way to break a thumb. He should probably tell Henry that—Ronan had told Gansey and it hadn’t saved him, but Henry’s probably a better listener, Henry will remember—but he doesn’t. Gansey stays silent in the backseat of the Pigeon, still watching the movement of Henry’s fingers. He watches as they stay tucked tight. Fists, with the thumb on the inside. It’s all the confirmation Gansey needs to realize what he’s, really, known all along: Henry isn’t going to punch anyone. 

Gansey feels a bit nauseous. 

Gansey remembers what Henry said to him. He remembers it like it was yesterday because, for Gansey, it always is, in some way. He remembers: they had me tell her on the phone what they intended to do to me every day she did not pay. 

“Jane?” 

“Yes? Is it important? Don’t talk to me when I’m trying to drive, Gansey!” Blue’s voice is frantic and panicked. It makes Gansey feel worse. 

“Can we roll the windows down?” he asks, trying to keep his own voice calm, trying not to give away the game. The Game: Henry Cheng is afraid and Gansey just hopes he’s happy, too. 

Blue rolls the windows down. It’s a good thing Blue drives so slowly because the wind would probably be too harsh otherwise. But, like this, at a steady pace, it’s everything. It’s fresh air and the reminder that they keep moving, that time keeps moving. 

Gansey sighs in relief. He takes one last glance at Henry’s hands and… his palms are lax on his thighs, his fingers splayed. Gansey’s sigh deepens. 

Insomnia.

Gansey wishes he was more like Ronan. Not something most people have ever said, but something Gansey really does long for. He wishes he knew why he couldn’t sleep the way other people did. He knows, deep down, that it has something to do with Cabeswater and ley lines and death. But that’s not exactly the fulfilling answer he’s searching for, so. 

So, Gansey can’t sleep. It’s not the first time it’s happened on the trip, but it is the first time Gansey feels like he’s not going to sleep at all. He also feels a bit trapped. The motel room is smaller than most of the others have been. No table, no desk. Just two beds and a bathroom. Just three heartbeats and a clock ticking towards 4 AM. 

Gansey crawls out of bed and opens the window. There’s an immediate relief that comes from being met with outside air, with a change in temperature, with the sound of crickets and wind. His shoulders drop as his tension fades and the static in his mind fades to a whisper, fades to something more manageable. 

He stands there for a long time. He’s reminded of Raven’s Point and the lookout. He’s reminded of the way he could have spent forever staring out in the middle distance, into the unknown. He feels like that now. 

Still, he’s thinking more than he’d like to be. 

Gansey had once dreamt that the finding of Glendower would be, not joy, but the absence of pain. It was a lightness. A freedom. The reality has been… less idyllic. The reality: Glendower was dead all along. The reality: Gansey survived and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself. The reality: Gansey never got answers to any of his questions. The reality: Gansey still doesn’t know why he survived—either one of his deaths, really. 

On nights like this one, Gansey can’t help himself from going back to eight years ago and the first death. On nights like this one, Gansey hears that voice in his head, that murmuring of: You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not. Gansey doesn’t know who the voice belonged to. He doesn’t know that the voice was even real. But he can’t help but remember Helen’s words, too. He can’t help but wonder if it was a hallucination, if it was all in his head, if it all really was nothing more than coincidence. 

Gansey doesn’t know anything.

Gansey stands at the window and thinks of everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. Time falls aways from him. It could be morning, and he wouldn’t know until the sun blinded him. It could be the next night, and he wouldn’t know until he collapsed from lack of sleep. Time is a wave crashing over him. Again and again and again. Until he’s disoriented. Until he doesn’t know up from down—past from present from future.   

“Gansey Man,” Henry’s voice drawls, scratchy with sleep. “Close the window. It’s hot.” 

Gansey closes the window. He opens his mouth to whisper an apology, but nothing comes out. He gets back into bed with Blue, but sleep doesn’t come to claim him. 

Gansey knows it can’t really be coincidence, all of this. It can’t be when he’s in this room with these two people. It can’t be when everything is so interwoven in such uncanny connections. It can’t be when Gansey had never heard of Glendower before that day. His dying mind couldn’t have come up with such a hallucination. He couldn’t have made it all up. It couldn’t be a wild goose chase towards a dead king, toward a dead end. 

Gansey rolls over.

He found Glendower. He reminds himself again and again: I found him, I found him, I found him. It’s not Gansey’s fault Glendower was dead. He still found the cave, the tomb, the skeleton. He still found him. He still completed the quest. But. 

Gansey rolls over. 

But why, then, does he still feel so restless? So urgent? 

Gansey rolls over. 

He didn’t live because of Glendower. 

Gansey rolls over. 

Did he? 

Gansey rolls over. 

Blue gets out of bed. She kisses him softly, and then she leaves. She crosses the gap between the two beds and climbs into Henry’s. Henry doesn’t protest, just shuffles over enough to make room for her. Gansey, once again, opens his mouth to apologize. Once again, no sound comes out. 

You will live because of Glendower.

Gansey rolls over. 

Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.

Gansey rolls over. 

Gansey lived when he should not. 

He rolls over. 

Nashville isn’t Gansey’s favorite stop. He’s worn with tiredness from the night before. He did eventually fall into a fitful, restless sleep, but, by then, the sun was already rising. By then, it was only a couple hours before he woke again, dark circles under his eyes and a low level headache that won’t leave him until he sleeps again, and properly, this time. (Hopefully.) There are no forests to gallivant around in Nashville. There’s just Centennial Park, the Parthenon replica—it would’ve been cooler, if Gansey hadn’t seen the actual Parthenon before—and, as they’re leaving town as evening falls, a sign for a diner called Dino’s. 

“We have to stop,” Gansey says. He’s smiling, even though he doesn’t actually feel it. Most of him would like to carry on until the next motel they see, and stop for the night. The fraction of him that still feels guilty and apologetic for keeping Henry and Blue up half the night, for being such a buzzkill today, wants to make up for it, though. He wants to find something to bring a smile to their faces, so he plasters a fake one onto his. 

Dino’s, it turns out, is very, very similar to Nino’s. The atmosphere is the same even if the menu is entirely different—American classics instead of pizza.

“Don’t hit on the waitress,” Blue says, once they’ve been seated on a peeling, red leather booth. Gansey’s legs are already sticking to the material. He already really wants to get out of here. 

Gansey says, “I’ll try not to.” 

Henry looks between them, a furrow of confusion between his brows. He says, “I’m sensing a story.” 

“Go on,” Gansey tells Blue. He takes the opportunity to knock his arm into hers. It comes like relief, like air conditioning after a long day in the heat. “Tell him how I made an ass of myself the first time we met.” 

Henry laughs a little, before Blue can speak, and says, “I guess we’ve got that in common then.”

Gansey’s mind catapults back to the road, to Henry’s broken down car, to his stupid comment. It was very dumb, and, yet, Henry still fared better than Gansey in this regard. Gansey tells him as much. 

“Now I really have to hear this,” Henry says, leaning forward, chin held in his hand. He prompts, “Miss Sargent?” 

“Call me that and die,” she snaps. Then, she launches into the story of the first time Blue and Gansey met. She does a horribly accurate impression of Gansey’s Virginia money accent, as she puts it, and nails his coffin with a final blow of, “How much do you make an hour?” 

By the end of it all, Gansey has his head in his hands. He knocks his glasses up his nose and the metal digs into his skin, but he doesn’t even care. He can’t look. It’s like a car crash. His internal organs are cringing on his behalf. That night’s exchange had kept him up for many nights after, and he can feel the familiar tickle of shame crawling up his throat. 

Blue takes him out of his misery, ruffling a hand through his, probably sweaty, hair. She says, “Poor thing. Dealing with the consequences of your own ignorance.” 

From anyone else, it would be another jab, another insult, another reminder. From Blue, though, it’s gentle and kind and forgiving. There’s an understanding there that Gansey knows, so there’s no reason to pour salt in the wound. Gansey says, bereft and muffled by his hands, “Poor me.” 

“Don’t know how you managed to come back from that, white man,” Henry says, tone lost somewhere between sarcastic and genuine. “You must have some game.” 

Blue laughs harder than Gansey thinks she should at that. He should be offended by that laughter, but, instead, his heart beats a little calmer. He drops his hands, readjusts his glasses, and watches her as she says, “No. I think fate just happened to be on his side.” 

“Lucky me,” Gansey says. It was meant to be dry or wry or something. To his chagrin, it comes out besotted and disgusting. 

Henry’s lips part, his vocal cords flex for sound, but whatever he was going to say gets cut off by the waiter’s arrival. They order burgers so large they’ll probably make them sick later and sweet teas that will have nothing on Nino’s. When the waiter leaves, Henry says, “I don’t know, Gansey, I think I would’ve liked to see you flirt with him.”

Blue falls into laughter again. Gansey blushes down to his collar. 

Four weeks and as many states, and Gansey and Blue have kissed only twice. Not for lack of wanting, but maybe, instead, for an abundance of wanting, of feeling, of true love. 

Gansey’s heart is still a ley line heart. Or it’s a forest that used to live on a ley line. Or it’s not actually a forest, just something more shaped like a forest when he knew it. It’s something more held up by a ley line and magicians and belief. It’s an area of contention, is what it is. It’s doubt and uncertainty. 

It’s hesitation. 

It’s not that Blue won’t kiss Gansey. It’s not that Gansey won’t kiss Blue. It’s that neither of them will kiss the other when they’re alone. Which means: neither of them will kiss the other when Henry isn’t in the room. And, even then, the kisses are fleeting, brief. Even then, they’re wrapped up in the excuse of being impolite. They’re keeping things short for Henry’s sake. They’re doubt and uncertainty. 

They’re hesitating. 

It’s not what either of them wants. The longing between them has been ripe for a year, long since ready for harvest and culmination and following through. The desire between them has been obvious and unhidden for eight months—maybe even nine—and yet.

It’s fear, is what it is. It’s difficult to kiss without apprehension, without mistrust, without the safeguard of other people when, the first time they kissed, Gansey literally dropped dead. It’s hard not to be afraid when neither one entirely understands what happened that night, when neither one of them has proof for the claim that it won’t happen again. 

When they do kiss, though, it’s magic. When they do kiss, Gansey is afraid and happy. 

It’s not lost on Gansey that it’s easiest around Henry. 

Gansey could say that it was harder in the presence of Ronan or Adam because of the lingering concerns for jealousy and protecting feelings, but that would be a lie. Gansey could say that it’s easier for Blue when it’s Henry because, as far as Gansey has heard, it was Henry who sprung them into action and solution that night, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Gansey could say a lot of things, could and has made up a lot of explanations to appease himself, but none of them amount to anything. 

Gansey doesn’t really know what the truth is. Part of him does, in the way that part of him has experienced the future already. But it’s not a part that he can make understandable, tangible, concise. It’s not a part of him that he can look at without feeling dizzy, sea sick, staggering. All he can do is make excuses for himself, craft explanations that mean nothing, that evaporate under any sort of close examination. 

All Gansey can really do, anytime he isn’t terrified to, is kiss Blue. When the opportunity presents itself, when he can look at her without remembering the middle of the road and black ooze down Ronan’s face and dreamt petals mixing with rain and the end of the world, he kisses her. He takes every moment he can. He presses their lips together and nothing happens, no one dies. They’re just two people, just a boy and a girl. There’s just the smell of ozone after a storm has passed, just the flutter of a hundred ravens in a cave, just the liquid feeling of affection, attraction, adoration swirling in his ley line heart. 

There’s just this: a kiss. 

There’s not many—and, during the trip, they all happen in Henry’s company—but, when these moments come to pass, Gansey indulges. He gives Blue everything, and takes all that she gives. He lives each minute over and over. Keeps going until he’s sure he’ll have to skip the next few just to keep up with the rest of the world, just to keep up with the linear timeline. (He never does have to, but he’s scared of getting stuck, scared of missing something, so. When the fear begins to poison the moment, he pulls into the present, pulls into the moment one of them, usually Blue, pulls away first.) 

Henry never says anything about the kissing when it happens. He must have expected it when he agreed to go on a year-long road-trip with a couple. Still, though, sometimes Gansey looks at him after and he senses something in Henry. Something hidden deep beneath the surface in the language of silence and secrets. Gansey can only recognize it because he’s fluent in both. 

Hesitation, Gansey would call it, if he wasn't keeping it a silent secret too. 

Gansey’s not entirely sure how they end up there, given that none of them are entirely religious, but Thorncrown Chapel is one of those places so beautiful, so strange that Gansey feels tears pricking at his eyes. 

It’s a chapel in the middle of the woods. Intersecting wooden beams carve a geometric pattern out of place amidst the soft angles of nature, blue pews line the aisle like a river cut in half, huge windows let light in through the trees and clouds. It becomes a picture saved to Gansey’s phone and sent off to Ronan at once. 

Ronan, Gansey thinks, would love this. The dichotomy of it all. The sharpness of the appearance, but the peace inherent in its existence. Ronan, Gansey thinks, would look right at home at a castle-like church in the middle of the woods. 

Gansey misses him like he’s drowning. 

Ronan: whatever you do, don’t tell the clergy you’ve died twice. you’ll be the poster child for the miracle of God.  

Gansey laughs, but he almost feels like crying. He doesn’t get this. He doesn’t get how Ronan can be Ronan—dreamer and creator of all things, product of tragedies Gansey can still hardly comprehend as real—and still believe in some higher power that has all the answers. 

If Gansey’s honest with himself, Glendower was like God to him. Glendower was supposed to offer Gansey understanding in life, so he could stop being afraid of the nearness of death. Glendower was supposed to be his. 

But Glendower was dead. Surely, God must be too. 

Gansey doesn’t send any of this to Ronan. He doesn’t text back for a long time. He doesn’t have anything to say that won’t be tinted in disbelief, in condescension. It’s his own problem, he knows. He doesn’t want to—and isn’t so disillusioned to think he could—take away whatever comfort Ronan receives from religion. And so, Gansey doesn’t text him back. He paces the pews and looks out the huge windows until he starts to feel like he’s on display, like he’s being watched. 

He escapes outside. He likes it better that way. He likes looking through the windows instead of out. He likes looking in on the idea of religion without having to feel it bearing down on his own shoulders. He likes the way the sun glances of his glasses, the way the footsteps of Blue and Henry echo out to meet him, the way the world feels different when he’s standing with his feet on dirt instead of hardwood. 

Gansey: Do you think they would make a movie about me? 

Ronan: yeah, a shit one. 

Gansey grins. He misses Ronan like he misses Monmouth Manufacturing. 

Gansey: Is my plant still alive?

Ronan: sure

Gansey: Not convinced. Send proof of life. 

Ronan: i’m busy. parrish and opal say hi. 

Less than a minute later, Adam sends him a picture of the mint plant thriving and the light Ronan dreamt to keep it that way. Gansey’s heart breaks and heals and breaks and heals—all at once, over and over and over. 

Henry is quiet. It’s a fact of life, like: Blue eats yogurt for more meals a day than is advisable, Gansey is stupid about money, Henry is quiet. But, usually, he’s quiet in a way that lends itself to soft spoken. Or, if not truly quiet or soft spoken, then frontage or facade or performative. Today, he is quiet in a way that just means quiet. 

Gansey’s loath to admit that he didn’t notice it right away. The morning began with easy hums of approval or content, with a mumbled “yes” or “no” where necessary. The speech patterns were vague and poor, but they weren’t unusual. They’ve only gotten worse as the day has gone on. It’s not until late afternoon is slipping into early evening, when Henry hasn’t spoken a word since lunch, that Gansey starts to really pay attention. And, when he starts to pay attention, he starts to worry. 

The plan was to go to a park and watch the sunset. Blue changes it, like an executive decision, with the words, “I’m exhausted. Let’s just find a motel.” 

They find a motel. Two beds, cramped bathroom, big windows where they could still, probably, watch the sunset. 

None of them do. 

Henry disappears into the bathroom and, when the shower starts to run, Gansey says, “Blue.” 

Blue nods. She takes his hand, tracing her thumb over the inside of his palm in a way that tickles and soothes all the same. She uses her hold to pull Gansey a little closer, drops her forehead to his chest, to his collarbone. She whispers, “I know.” 

“Something’s wrong,” Gansey says. He feels a flutter of upset that he hasn’t felt since high school, since Adam and Ronan and always trying to pick up the pieces of a problem he didn’t understand. 

“I know, love,” Blue says. Her accent lingers on the last word, passes over it like a lazy stroll. Gansey releases the tiniest of involuntary noises, like his throat hitches. Blue probably wouldn’t have noticed if her head wasn’t on Gansey’s chest. But it is, so she does. She exhales an amused laugh. She says, “We’ll talk to him.” 

Gansey says, “It’s Henry.” 

Meaning: talking isn’t the way to communicate with him. Meaning: they might just make it worse. Meaning: Gansey is worried and his worry is starting to spiral into panic. 

“Gansey,” Blue says. She lifts her head. She looks him in the eyes, brown meeting hazel. “Please relax. It’s just a bad day. It happens.” And—gently, tenderly, intimately—she whispers, “You don’t have to fix it.” 

“No, but I want to,” says Gansey.

Blue kisses his chin, just shy of his mouth. Gansey wraps his arms around her. She hugs him back. 

“You’re pitiful,” Blue says softly. Her voice is like a balm to a wound. 

“And you like me this way,” Gansey answers. 

Blue doesn’t say anything else, and, for a while, they just stand there hugging. In the middle of the motel room, in the fading light of the evening sun. Gansey holds Blue close and matches his breathing to hers, lets their inhales sync and their exhales release in time. It’s a soothing exercise, a calming draught for what’s to come. 

The shower shuts off. 

A few minutes pass in near silence. There’s just the motel’s AC and the single, shared breath of Blue and Gansey. Then, the bathroom door opens and steam pours out. Henry follows in its wake. Gansey and Blue don’t pull apart, at least not in any abrupt or sudden way. They disentangle themselves slowly, carefully, like they’re scared of splitting stitches. 

Henry is, pointedly, not looking at them. He’s sitting at the end of the nearest bed, legs dangling over the edge and chin tucked towards his chest. His phone is sitting in his lap, Robobee is sitting on his shoulder. 

“Henry?” 

He doesn’t make a sound, he doesn’t look up, he makes no acknowledgment of having heard them. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Blue decides for him. She speaks like it’s fact because, for Blue, it is. She never says anything she doesn't mean. She doesn’t need him to speak, doesn’t need him to explain. (Gansey wishes he felt the same, but his own need is curling inside him like a vice.) Blue moves to sit beside Henry, legs and shoulders almost, but not quite, touching. 

Henry picks up his phone. For a moment, he navigates the screen, then he holds it up for them to see. It’s open to his calendar, and it reads: August 11th, Mom’s birthday. 

“Hm,” Blue says. Her eyes flick to Gansey’s. There’s confusion there, a lack of understanding in the furrow of her brows. Gansey doesn’t have an answer for her. He just keeps standing there, attention passing between the two of them like a volley or a rally.

Henry’s looking at his phone again. He’s opened a new app. The dial pad waits to be used, numbers ready to be punched in. And then Gansey gets it. 

“You’re supposed to call her?” he asks. 

Henry looks up at Gansey. He nods, and it’s heartbreaking. Not the action itself, but the expression on Henry’s face. He’s stripped bare, vulnerable, an exposed wire. He’s scared and sad and tired. He looks, to borrow Blue’s vocabulary, pitiful. 

Gansey almost offers to make the call for him, even though he knows it’s not a viable solution. He just wants to make it better, make it stop, make it go away. He wants to wipe that look from Henry’s features, manipulate his lips into that usual, natural, wide smile of his. Gansey can’t handle this, he can’t cope with a problem that he has no control over. 

Gansey handles it anyway. He copes anyway. 

Gansey says, “You don’t have to. You can use Robobee to send her a message, can’t you?”

Henry nods again. He opens his mouth. He closes his mouth. He opens his mouth. He closes his mouth. He opens— “Once a year,” his voice is desperately soft, barely audible. “I call her once a year, on her birthday.” 

Gansey moves. He closes the gap between him and the bed, and sits down on Henry’s other side. He, unlike Blue, allows their shoulders to brush. Henry begins to dial the number. (He has it memorized. He calls it once a year, and he has it memorized. Gansey’s knee is bobbing, jittering, shaking with distress.) 

Henry sits framed between the two of them. Blue on one side, Gansey on the other. He’s surrounded by support as the dial tone rings, as Henry lifts the phone to his ear, as he says, “Eomma.” 

Henry slips into Korean and, though Gansey doesn’t understand the language, he listens like he does. He strains his ears for abnormalities in Henry’s vocals, signs of distress or upset. When Gansey doesn’t hear any, when he continues to not hear any, he relaxes. Gansey is, oddly, tempted to drop his head to Henry’s shoulder. He doesn’t. 

Blue does. 

Gansey, instead, presses the length of his leg against the length of Henry’s. Henry keeps talking. 

When Henry, eventually, hangs up, they still don’t move from his sides. The three of them stay tucked in close for a long stretch of—seconds, minutes, hours?—time. They stay that way until Henry exhales a sound that seems alarmingly like a sob. Gansey moves at once, turning his body so he and Henry are no longer parallel lines, but perpendicular ones. (They’re still touching. His knee is pressed into Henry’s hip.) He moves enough to get a look at his face, his side profile, only to find a smile on Henry’s face. It doesn’t appease his panic the way Gansey thinks it should. 

“Henry?” 

He laughs again, a devastating sound. He says, awfully, “Sorry.” 

Gansey shakes his head. This time, he’s the one who can’t find the words. Language slips through the gaps of his fingers and catches in his chest. He parts his lips to say something—it’s fine, it’s okay, don’t apologize—but his vocal cords are muted. All he can do is shake his head. 

Henry starts talking. 

“You know, I’ve never— never been good at words,” he says. Once he starts, it seems that he can’t stop. The dam breaks, the floodgates open. “But then, imagine your voice is taken over by someone else. Imagine you’re forced to say terrible, awful, horrible things to your mother. I never— never wanted to speak again. I didn’t, actually, for like a month.” He inhales. “It would have gone on longer, probably, if my father hadn’t gotten involved. Something about not having a—no, I can’t say that word, sorry—for a son.” He laughs for a third time. “So, now, I only call my mother on her birthday.” 

Blue eases Henry’s phone from his tight-knuckled grip. She sets it down on the bed behind them, and then returns to place her palm, gently, over Henry’s hand. Her small hand barely covers his long, slender fingers. 

Robobee buzzes in the air, for just a moment. It lands again on the neckline of Henry’s shirt. 

Gansey reminds himself that throwing up isn’t going to solve anything, isn’t going to help, isn’t going to do more than make a mess for him to clean up. 

Gansey wants to turn his body again. He wants to press his entire side against Henry’s, but he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps flicking his eyes over Henry’s side profile. He watches his jaw tick with tension that seizes up, and then falls away. Seizes up, then falls… away. Over and over as Henry regulates, as he, once more, goes quiet in the wake of his outburst of speech. 

“You did good,” Blue tells him. 

Henry doesn’t say anything, but he turns his hand, palm up, to squeeze hers. One, two, three seconds. Then, release. Then, Henry moves altogether, pulls out from between the two of them and edges up the bed. In the process, he knocks his phone to the floor. He doesn’t bother to pick it up, doesn’t even seem to notice. Henry shoves the covers down and then up over himself, curled in on his side, back facing the room and front facing the wall. 

With Henry gone, Gansey can set his eyes on Blue. Her eyes are a little glassy, like she’s been fighting off tears. Gansey’s no stranger to the feeling. 

Blue moves. She cups Gansey’s jaw in one hand, strokes her thumb over his cheek. She looks like she’s going to kiss him, but then she doesn’t. She applies the slightest of pressures with her hand, and then she moves away entirely. Still in her clothes from the day, she crawls under the covers with Henry, not close enough to be touching already, but close enough that Henry could reach out if he needed to. 

Henry doesn’t reach out. Something in Gansey shatters. 

Gansey sits on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, still. He stays until Blue closes her eyes, until it becomes obvious that they’re all tired and it’s time for sleep. Perfunctorily, Gansey changes, and then gets into the empty bed on the other side of the room. He leaves his girlfriend and his friend to share a bed, with the offering of physical touch, comfort, affection just a hair’s breadth between them. 

Gansey finds that he doesn’t actually mind. 

He thinks he should. He thinks if he were Ronan, he would be fuming. He thinks if he were Adam, he would be waiting for the moment that Blue left him for someone else, someone better. He doesn’t know how he would feel if he was Blue. But when he’s just him, just Gansey, he doesn’t care. 

He kind of… he likes it. 

Gansey wakes the next morning to find that Henry had rolled over sometime in the night. He now lays facing Blue, nose nearly brushing the soft curls that stumble around her pillow. The two are close enough to touch, but, with the blanket pulled up over their shoulders, Gansey can’t tell if they are. It’s inconsequential, regardless. He doesn’t care, doesn’t mind, either way. He’s curious, though. 

Gansey ignores the curiosity. (He doesn’t. His mind is imagining legs tangled together. He tells himself that, if any feeling is evoked by the image, it’s jealousy.)

He retrieves Henry’s phone from the floor between the beds. It’s nearly dead, so Gansey plugs it into a charger and sets it on the bedside table with the clock and the lamp. Gansey moves around the motel, going about his morning—brushing his teeth, washing his face, pissing—as quietly as he can in the hopes that he doesn’t wake Blue or Henry. In the hopes that they can get a bit more rest before a new day begins. 

Gansey is just about to dip out to find coffee when something buzzes by his ear, tickles at his hair, makes his heartbeat stutter into a panicked rhythm. Gansey goes deathly still, swallowing the instinct to swat, as he’s become an expert at doing. It doesn’t even choke him anymore. 

Henry says, “It’s just Robobee.” 

Gansey exhales. He turns towards Henry as he feels the electronic bee land somewhere in his hair. It’s still an uncomfortable sensation, but he pretends it’s not bothering him. He asks, “What’re you doing?” 

“Uh? Waking up?” Henry answers. Then, quickly, “Oh, you mean with Robobee. Yeah, no, I don’t know. Sorry.” 

Robobee still doesn’t leave Gansey’s hair. Gansey exhales again, but this time it’s less relief, release and more exasperation. Gansey says, “I’m going to find coffee.” 

Henry hums. “You know there’s a pot right there, right?” He points to the table by the wall, stacked tall with their things and a coffee pot at its center. 

Gansey says, “I couldn’t figure out how to work it.” 

Henry laughs a little, this noise that’s purposefully constrained in order to avoid waking Blue—they’re not going to succeed for long; Gansey can already see the beginnings of stirrings in the twitch of her lips and the rustling of the covers around her feet. Henry extracts himself from Blue and joins Gansey by the table, says, “We’ll figure it out together. C’mon.” 

Neither one of them mentions the day of silence before, the phone call, the confession, the shared bed. But Robobee stays tangled in Gansey’s hair. Gansey thinks that’s acknowledgment enough. 

“You’re driving,” Gansey tells Henry, tossing him the car keys. Henry fumbles to catch them just as he fumbles for a protest. 

“Me?” is all he manages, in the end. 

Gansey says, “You.” And, “There’s no engine. There’s literally nothing for you to worry about.” 

Henry blinks at him. He shakes his head. He doesn’t toss the keys back to Gansey. 

Gansey takes it as his cue to continue, to keep trying, to press just a little harder. He says, “It’ll be good, I promise. And, well, if it’s not: we’ll pull over and switch, and I’ll never ask you to drive again.” 

Henry frowns. 

“I think it’ll be good for you,” Gansey says. He’s starting to regret this. He’s starting to feel self conscious with the way Blue and Henry are both just staring at him, in silence. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe it’ll be terrible. Maybe driving isn’t a universal release—maybe it’s just Gansey and Ronan and their twisted brains. He suppresses his doubt, doesn’t let Henry see it. He says, “Just try.” Lighthearted, joking a little more than he’s being serious, he adds, “For me?” 

“Fine,” Henry says. He doesn't sound happy about it, but he doesn’t sound afraid either. His final act of objection comes in the form of, “The numbers?” 

Gansey doesn’t know why numbers confuse Henry, and he doesn’t think he could get him to explain it if he tried, so he doesn’t try. He just says, “I’ll navigate.” 

Henry sighs. He nods. He unlocks the car and the three of them pile in: Henry behind the wheel, Blue in the backseat, Gansey in the passenger seat. Henry drives them to Oklahoma City, and it’s electric. It’s every artifact Gansey has ever found, every ley line he’s ever walked, every storm he’s ever weathered. It’s electric. 

Gansey smiles the whole way there. 

Oklahoma takes them to a family owned gelato place where Gansey stains his polo and he doesn’t even care because the ice cream is so good. He says, “This is not what the gelato in Henrietta is like.” 

“Then how come you used to drag us there, like, once a week?” Blue asks. She’s got her fake-annoyed voice on. It’s completely betrayed by her face: the easy slant of her brows, the scrunching of her nose like she’s trying not to smile, the glint in her eyes. Gansey’s thinking about kissing her. 

He doesn’t. Instead he says, “Uh, I don’t think that was me?” 

Blue pouts, like she disagrees, but she doesn’t argue, and the moment passes without much thought. They finish their ice cream and head out soon after. They take to the streets of Oklahoma City, walking around in the blazing heat of August and looking for something to do. Ideally, something that involves air conditioning. 

Gansey knows it as soon as he sees it: The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. 

“We’re going in,” Gansey says, pushing through the doors before Blue or Henry can argue. Blue groans a little in protest, but it’s half hearted at best, especially when she sees the genuine joy on Gansey’s face. Her expression softens. It doesn’t brighten to match his, but it’s close enough, Gansey decides. 

As they enter the museum, they’re immediately greeted by a giant statue of a horse and its rider. Joy bubbles up in Gansey’s chest and spills from his lips. He laughs, warm and genuine and rich. He’s grappling for his phone before he’s even registered the choice to move. He snaps a quick and, admittedly, sort of blurry picture. He fires it off to Adam. (God, he misses Adam.) Adam texts back much sooner than Gansey expected. 

Adam Parrish: Yeehaw. 

Gansey laughs a little louder. Blue says, fondly, “boys.” Henry takes a proper picture of the statue. The three of them disappear further into the massive museum. 

Gansey, again, smiles the whole way. 

That night, in the latest motel, Henry finally acknowledges the previous day. But he does so in a way that is so unexpected. (And, really, with Henry, that might as well be the expected.) He says, “So, since you both so graciously helped me yesterday, I’m going to help you, too.” Then, without a pause, without giving them time to say that’s not necessary, he continues, “Why are you two not kissing?” 

Gansey loses a soft sound of surprise. Blue snaps, “Excuse me?” 

“I just mean: if it’s for my sake, then I really don’t mind,” Henry says. He looks a little wide-eyed, like perhaps he’s regretting bringing any of this up. He powers through anyway. “But I don’t think it is because of me. I think this has been happening since November, and I want to know why. So I can, like, help.” 

“Because you’re so invested in our relationship?” Blue asks. She’s getting defensive. Which means that Henry has struck a nerve. Which means they all know that he’s right. They’ve barely kissed more than a dozen times since November, since the first. 

Henry shrugs. He goes a little flushed, but that could mean anything. “Tell me you’re content with things as they are, and I’ll drop it.” 

Blue deflates. She turns away from Henry, shoulders dropping. She turns, instead, to Gansey. Her brows are furrowed in question, her eyes gentling out of anger and into something more. She’s open to this—to whatever this is—and that’s all Gansey needs to be open to it too. He makes steady eye contact with Blue and they transcend words in that moment. It’s like their hearts, their minds, their souls connect to reach mutual understanding. A silent conversation passes between them. The consensus: “We’re not content with things as they are.” 

“But it doesn’t matter,” says Blue. She tears her eyes from Gansey’s. She looks somewhere in the direction of Henry, but not directly at him. “As you once put it, my mouth killed him. We have no way of knowing it won’t happen again. It’s— It’s mirror magic, okay? It’s notoriously tricky and unpredictable and—” 

“I don’t think it will happen again,” Henry says. 

“Oh, because you’re an expert now?” Blue asks. She’s getting close to yelling again, anger coming back tenfold. Her volume is rising as the impossibility of their situation weighs on her, as holding back for months thins her patience, as frustration takes over. 

“No,” Henry says. “But you are. Your family is.” He guesses, “Another St. Mark’s Eve has been and passed. No Gansey on the list, right? Your mother has done a dozen readings for you both. No death, no kiss your true love and he’ll die, right?” He says, “It’s over, Blue. The threat has been eliminated. You have to try to believe it.” 

Blue’s eyes close. 

Gansey’s watching her. He didn’t know about the readings, he didn’t ask about the death list when April 24th came and went. Probably he didn’t want to know if his new life was going to be the most temporary of them all. Probably he couldn’t have handled it if she said they were denied again, forced onto a path where holding hands was as intimate as they’d ever become. He didn’t know and he didn’t ask, but Blue knew and she didn’t tell. Blue knew and she still didn’t kiss him. 

It’s hesitation of the irrational kind. She’s afraid. 

Blue opens her eyes. She tells Henry, finally, “Right.” 

Henry says, “Kiss him. Really kiss him.” And, “If he dies, I’ll help you hide the body.” 

Blue, impossibly, laughs. Blue, impossibly, turns to Gansey once more. Blue, impossibly, kisses him. She really kisses him. 

It’s everything they’ve spent months hiding from. Their lips touch and they don’t pull back, not right away. Their lips touch and they don’t keep it chaste, like a schoolyard kiss. Their lips touch and they finally, finally, finally give in. Blue really kisses him and Gansey is just… Gansey is just trying to keep up. It’s deeper than any ocean, it’s gentler than any mourning dove’s call, it’s realer than any stretch of woods. It’s not just meant to be, it’s supposed to be. It’s not fated in the way of tragedy; it’s fated in the way of a storm that passes through and the local accent taking on the phrase, we needed that. 

Gansey’s hand finds the side of Blue’s face, her hand finds his shoulder. Her fingers are playing at the collar of his polo, tugging just enough that he can feel it against his throat. Gansey hitches, melts further into her, dissolves into nothing more than this moment, this kiss. 

Blue smiles into the kiss. Gansey can feel her teeth against his lips. 

It goes and goes and goes, and then it stops. Gansey is the one to pull away this time. They part, but they don’t go far. Gansey’s hand trails up from her jaw to her cheek and to her hair. He tries, failingly, to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear. Again and again until she laughs. Then, he drags his thumb higher, to her eyebrow and the soft, barely noticeable scar etched into the skin of her forehead. 

Blue kisses him once more. This one is brief, is chaste, is schoolyard in nature. But it’s not holding back, it’s not restraint, it’s not one foot always hovering over the brake. There’s no built up tension—okay, well, there is. One kiss isn’t going to make up for months of non-kisses, but. But it’s better. 

It’s better. 

Blue says, “okay,” and then she steps out of Gansey’s embrace and disappears into the bathroom. She leaves Gansey and Henry standing alone in the motel room, in a heated silence with the distance between them too short for what Gansey and Blue were just doing. 

Henry says, “Now, we’re even.” 

Gansey nods. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not transactional, it’s not a scoreboard. It’s just friendship and unconditional caring and helping each other out whenever they can. But Gansey doesn’t say any of that. He just nods. 

He brings his thumb to his bottom lip. It’s wet with activity, with saliva. It’s so crude. Gansey closes his eyes and sighs. Henry, from somewhere a little further away now, laughs at him. Gansey doesn’t care. He’d like to see him be composed after Blue Sargent kisses him like that. 

Texas is, somehow, hotter than Oklahoma was. Gansey’s ditched his usual polo for a t-shirt and, as the day goes on, he pushes the sleeves up higher and higher. Now, they’re bunched up at his shoulders, barely grazing his arms at all. Now, Gansey stands in front of Cadillac Ranch, trying to figure out why he likes this stupid attraction so much. Ten cars in a row, buried halfway into the ground, standing perfectly vertical otherwise, and covered in graffiti. Gansey thinks it’s that last part: the collective nature of the display, the lines of spray paint that come from more hands than Gansey can imagine. 

It’s beautiful. 

Henry’s taking pictures. Gansey is pretending that he doesn’t realize most of them are of him. It was the same way at the museum in Oklahoma City. It’s the same way most of the photographs from their hikes are of Blue. Henry is capturing their wonder, their awe, their joy. Gansey can’t fault him, and he, well, he enjoys looking over the photos later. It’s a compromise to do so. It’s not time slippage, but it is reminiscent of days that are too recent to really be nostalgic for. 

Blue hands Gansey a can of spray paint. She says, quietly, “You look obscene.” Before Gansey can say anything to that, before he can really react, she says, louder, “Add one of your doodles. The cat attacking the man, or something.” 

Gansey has never so much as held a can of spray paint before. There’s no way he’s skilled enough to spray paint an entire cat into the already rainbow splattered metal of the car in front of him. Instead, he goes simple. Instead, he traces three intersecting lines, a familiar triangle, a path of invisible lines. 

Blue hums. She says, “Satisfactory.” 

“Jane,” Gansey complains, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s complaining about. 

Blue wraps her arms around Gansey’s waist, from behind so her forehead rests between his shoulder blades. Gansey places his own arms over Blue’s, his hands covering hers. It’s too hot for this. Gansey’s sticky with sweat and Blue is too. Neither one dares to move away.

“I love you,” Blue whispers.

“I love you too,” Gansey answers. 

Blue peels herself from Gansey, but she doesn’t go far. She traces a finger up Gansey’s arm, from elbow to shoulder. She pushes at Gansey’s shirt sleeve, hikes it up a little further. She keeps touching him and she keeps not pulling away. Gansey feels dizzy with it—though, maybe, that’s heat exhaustion. 

Gansey turns to face her. Blue looks up at him. Gansey kisses her. Blue lets him, Blue kisses back, Blue doesn’t pull away. 

When they inevitably part—because it really is too hot for this kind of prolonged contact—Gansey says, “I think I owe Henry my life.”

Blue laughs, like it catches her off guard, like a bark in the back of her throat. Nothing about the noise is delicate or inherently beautiful, but Gansey is enchanted by it anyway. Blue jokes, “In more ways than one.” 

Gansey smiles and takes Blue’s hand. He drags her further down the line of painted Cadillacs. They find Henry with a can of yellow spray paint in his hand, working on leaving his own mark on the monument, his own shape. 

“What is that?” Blue asks. “A pie?” 

“It’s obviously a lemon,” Gansey says. 

Henry adds another line that just confuses the image further. He says, “Screw you both. It’s a bee.” 

“A bit on the nose, isn’t it?” Gansey asks. As if he hadn’t just painted ley lines three cars down, as if all of life’s greatest pleasures aren’t the obvious kind. 

“Hmmm,” Blue says. She tilts her head, squints her eyes. She assesses, like she’s genuinely trying to see it. She says, “It’s definitely a pie.” 

“Why would I draw a pie!” Henry shouts. 

Gansey tunes them out as the bickering continues, devolving into further nonsense. The sun beats heavy up above, no shade to protect them, but Gansey kind of likes this heat. It’s comforting. Gansey rolls his sleeves back down to normal length. 

Blue, when she notices later, pushes them back up. 

Gansey: Good luck on your first day at Harvard. Not that you need it!

Adam Parrish: Thanks, Gansey. 

Adam Parrish: What state are you in now? 

Gansey: Texas!

Adam Parrish: Is it bad that all I can think to say is: yeehaw? 

Sometime between Palo Duro Canyon State Park and the International Waterlily Collection and the Albuquerque Museum with the curator that’s an old friend of Gansey’s (known for calling him son and smelling of cinnamon), Henry stops styling his hair and lets it go natural instead. It doesn’t really mean much, until it does. Until Henry’s face is concealed behind his camera, taking pictures of Gansey at Chaco Culture National Historical Park—possibly Gansey’s favorite place they’ve been so far, with the ancient structures and the history swirling all around them. Until Henry lowers the camera and reveals a slightly rosy face framed with hair gone slightly wavy with sweat. Henry’s hair is longer than Gansey thought it was, tickling below his ears and just nearly skirting his jaw. 

Gansey realizes he doesn’t have a single picture of Henry stamped into his journal. Somehow, that’s the most horrifying epiphany. Somehow, that takes precedence, that thought presses at him until he’s distracted from what might be the most fulfilling stop on their trip thus far. 

Gansey says, “Hey, can you give me the camera?” 

Henry doesn’t hesitate to remove the strap from his own neck. He closes the distance between him and Gansey. Instead of just handing him the camera like a normal person, Henry loops it gently over Gansey’s head and around his neck. The weight rests against his muscles, the strap slips under the collar of his shirt, like the camera is supposed to be his. (It’s not. It looks much better on Henry, Gansey is sure.) 

Gansey says, “Now, let me take your picture.” 

Henry hides his surprise so well Gansey almost misses it. Henry shrugs noncommittally and backs up enough that he’s not crowding Gansey’s space, enough that there’s room for Gansey to lift the camera and focus the lens on Henry. Gansey does his best to frame the ruins behind him, to prove that the picture isn’t just of Henry, that there’s more to his motivations. But it’s all disingenuous. Really, Gansey is focused on getting the light to hit Henry just right, to illuminate and draw attention to that subtle texture in his hair. 

Gansey wants to push it behind his ear, the same way he does with Blue. 

Gansey snaps a picture. Henry salutes him. Gansey gives him back the camera. He returns his focus to the walls of history all around them, ignoring the feeling of dread in his stomach.

That evening, Gansey prints the picture. He holds the small rectangle in his hand, looking down at the composition and the subject matter. Henry Cheng stood before him, all hair and smile, his eyes intense. It’s a damn good picture. 

Gansey assembles today’s journal entry. He fills the day’s page with fun facts about the national park—Chaco was a gathering place among tribes but its larger purpose remains an enigma to historians, the park is home to what were the largest buildings in North America until the nineteenth century, the buildings were planned from the start rather than discovered in the process of construction—illustrations, and documentation of the weather. He sketches labyrinthian homes in the margins, doodles bugs into the corners, and draws desert plants between the words. Gansey finishes with the picture. 

With great care, Gansey secures the printed photograph into the space left open, waiting, patient for its arrival. It’s a carved out square amongst messy handwriting and haphazard doodles, and it looks perfect alongside it all. Henry looks perfect, smiling in a way that is so genuine Gansey can hardly help but be proud of his handiwork—of the journal, and of the grin he put on Henry’s face. 

Blue peers over his shoulder. She smells like the motel’s soap. She says, “It’s an awful good picture.” 

“Thank you,” Gansey says. He closes the journal, not to hide the image from her, but because he’s content. He’s finished for now and the pages are too sacred to be kept open, to be tainted with the air of changing conversation and motel dust. 

Blue leans down and kisses his forehead. Gansey touches her waist. 

“What are we doing for dinner?” she asks. “We should probably find a grocery store, right? Stock up on supplies?” 

“Sure,” Gansey says. 

Blue nods. She pushes his hair back from his face. She wrinkles her nose and says, “You need to shower.” 

“Sure,” Gansey repeats.

The three of them in seven states. It just feels right.  

Blue wants to go to New Mexico’s famous Carlsbad Caverns. Henry—wisely, Gansey later discovers—opts out of the hole in the ground in favor of exploring the nearby town. Gansey, however, agrees to go with Blue, and the couple descend into the cavern. 

Gansey recognizes his mistake near-immediately. He feels perilously undone, like he needs to hold onto something or be washed away. He settles for grabbing Blue’s hand as a tour guide drones on about the history of the cavern, about the things that make it unique, special, different than the caves of Cabeswater or the Dittley cave or the cave where Glendower was laid to rest. 

Gansey can’t stop hearing the buzzing of wasps. Gansey can’t stop experiencing the wrongness of Gwenllian’s voice through Chainsaw’s mouth. Gansey can’t stop opening Glendower’s tomb to find his body decayed beyond saving. Gansey can’t stop believing in the nearness of death. It wraps around him like an embrace, like a sweater on a day too hot out to be alive, like… like he’s suffocating. He’s too far from the surface, too far from the present to breathe.

Blue is saying something to the guide, but Gansey can’t hear her. His ears have gone to white noise, to whirring, to another time that isn’t this one. 

Gansey can’t feel the ground beneath his feet, so he doesn’t register that he’s moving—or, more likely, that he’s being moved. Gansey can only notice the nothingness that crowds him. It’s consuming him. But it’s the kind of nothingness that isn’t actually nothing. It’s the combination of too many things at once, too many times and places and sensations for Gansey to focus on any of them. So, instead, nothing. 

Gansey is underground. Back in Cabeswater, back in the Dittley cave, back in Glendower’s cave. Gansey is underground. Buried, dead, buried, dead. Gansey is underground. 

His hand squeezes Blue’s. Not by choice, but out of desperation. He’s searching for that feeling of veins and roots surrounding him, life pouring into him through pinpricks of pain. He’s searching for solace in the beat of Blue’s heart. He’s seeking out comfort in the knowledge that she’ll keep living, she’ll keep moving forward even as Gansey dies, even as Gansey keeps moving backwards. He’s squeezing her hand and it’s the only thing that’s real. It’s the only thing that isn’t nothing. 

Gansey’s shoulders are wet from the dripping of the cavern ceiling. He can feel it through the thin material of his shirt, more than he could feel it when it was Henry Cheng’s Aglionby sweater layered over a shirt. He can feel it. It’s not cold, but it’s not the kind of cold that means it’s warm. It’s the kind of cold that means it’s nothing. 

It’s the kind of nothing that isn’t actually nothing, though. It’s the kind of nothing that’s the combination of too—

The surface breaks. The sun shines on Gansey again. The water dries. 

“Gansey?” Blue asks. Gansey’s vision is blurry even with his glasses on, but he can see Blue standing in front of him. She’s blocking the rest of the world out, boiling them down to two points. Him and her, her and him. 

“That’s all there is,” Gansey says. Then, he gasps. He coughs a little. He breathes. He says, “Blue.” 

Blue throws her arms around him. She presses up on her toes, so she can wrap her arms around his neck, around his dry, dry, dry shoulders. She buries her face in the crook of Gansey’s throat, behind his ear where she can whisper, “Hug me back.” 

Gansey does. His arms move and they circle her waist and he feels. It’s not nothing anymore. The heat blares around them, Blue’s hair tickles his chin, her words whisper in his ear, her shirt wrinkles in his fists clenched tight—so she won’t pull away, so she won’t leave him stranded. Gansey hugs her back. It’s something. It’s everything.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. 

“Shut up, sweetheart,” Blue says. She kisses the shell of his ear. She says, “You’re okay. You’re here.”

“I’m here,” he tells her. He can’t tell if he’s comforting her, or himself. Probably both. Because, really, they’re not two points, they’re not so disconnected as to be him and her. They’re one, one being, one heart, one love. He says again, “I’m here.” 

It takes Gansey a long time to get his bearings back, to realize that they’re just standing there, hugging, at the very entrance of the cavern. Whoever helped them reach the surface has since left them to their own devices, which is, really, the only commendable part of any of this. And so, now, it’s just the two of them, alone as freedom ripples over their skin. The air of the cavern was stagnant and still, but, now, the world moves again. The earth spins again. 

Blue must notice that he’s coming back to himself, that he’s calming down, because she asks, “What exactly happened?” 

“Too many memories,” Gansey says. It’s the only way he can really explain it. The idea of being underground, of entering a cave, doesn’t scare him. The thought doesn’t unsettle him, but the reality taps into his vulnerabilities. The reality nestles into his memories and tugs at his timeline until it slips out from under him, until he loses his balance, until he’s clawing for the present. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the cave itself, it’s just a battle within himself. It’s a trigger that he should’ve anticipated.

Blue taps her palm twice over Gansey’s heart. She asks, “Shall we find Henry?” 

Gansey agrees. And so, they find Henry and they find a motel and they cut their day short. Only once they’re inside tonight’s room, secluded and just the three of them once more, does Blue say, “Alright, Henry, you were right. No more caves.” 

Henry doesn’t seem surprised by the admittance that things went wrong, even though Blue and Gansey hadn’t yet said a word to him about what happened in the cavern. Gansey’s glad, though, that there’s no reason to spell it all out. Henry knows what would’ve happened to himself if he entered that glorified hole in the ground, so he can put the pieces together to understand how Gansey reacted in his stead. Henry just taps Gansey on the forehead and says, “Good. Being left to my own devices was not very fun.” 

Just like that, the last of Gansey’s anxiety breaks. He’s worn and exhausted from the turmoil of the day, but he’s no longer fighting with every step to stay present. All it takes is the three of them in a room together, a comment from Henry, a playful touch, and he’s… grounded. At once, Gansey feels more himself than he’s felt in seconds, in minutes, in hours, in weeks, in months, in years. (They’re all the same to him.) 

Blue did her best, but, the thing about Blue is, she makes Gansey timeless. She makes him feel like Aglionby or Cabeswater did, like time was ever moving but it didn’t matter. It didn’t amount to anything when it was always the same. Blue and their love for each other is eternal and vast and bigger than he can comprehend. She brought him out of panic, but Henry cuts the remaining strings of anxiety. Henry brings him back to now. 

Henry anchors him. Henry keeps Gansey’s feet feeling the ground beneath them. 

Gansey needs both. He needs Blue to make him feel not alone in his something more and his warping of time. He needs Henry to keep him from getting stuck, from getting lost. He needs them both. 

He needs, he needs, he needs. 

Blue holds Gansey, in bed that same night. His back is to her front, her arms are looped around his waist. Every few minutes, she plants a kiss to the back of his neck, to the base of his skull. It’s a reminder, of sorts. It says: I’m here. It says: I’m still awake. It says: I love you. Gansey is reminded, distantly, of the phone calls they used to share, back before they shared a bed each night. Gansey could get lost in those memories, in the precious feeling of quiet that she used to give him—that she still gives him. But every time Gansey thinks he’s going to disappear into those memories, Blue kisses the back of his neck, the base of his skull. 

She’s here. She’s still awake. She loves him. 

“Jane,” Gansey whispers. It’s less a word and more the shape of it, more the exhale of the J and the closure of the n. 

“Gansey,” she whispers. Her breath ghosts along his neck, ruffles the fine hair there. It’s less his name and more the feeling of it, more the love she pours into the sound.

“Tell me a story?” he asks. There’s a plea to his tone, but he’s not embarrassed. He’s not opposed to begging where Blue is involved. 

I would beg just one off you. I would beg just one off you. I would beg just one off you. I would—

Blue kisses him again. Blue kisses the back of his neck, the base of his skull. Blue asks, “What kind of story?” 

“A nice one,” he tells her. 

Blue tells him the story of the time she ran away from home. She was twelve and Orla had just turned sixteen. Orla had been slowly, carefully, considerately deciding, over the course of the last three years, that boys were more important than anything. Their approval, at least, meant more than Blue’s. Their attention, at least, meant more than Blue’s. Blue says she can’t remember exactly what they were fighting about—they were always fighting about something. Well, at least, for those three years they were. Before that, Blue says, they were closer. They were friends until they weren’t, until they were more like just family. Anyway, Blue says, they were fighting. She can’t remember what they were fighting about, but she remembers how it ended. 

Orla said: It’s not my fault you can’t be kissed. You can’t make me feel miserable just because you’re cursed!

“That’s you,” Blue says, like Gansey doesn’t already know. She holds him a little tighter, pinches at the skin of his ribs with one hand. She says, “You’re the curse. Or I’m the curse and you’re the victim. I don’t know.” 

“Jane,” Gansey admonishes, “I said a nice one.” 

Blue laughs as quietly as she can. She continues the story. She says that, after that, she ran away from home. She says she was dragged back by the police. She says, when you grow up in a small town, when your mom is the town psychic, everyone knows who you are. She says the police knew who and what her mother was, so, when they got to 300 Fox Way, they asked Maura if she knew Blue would be okay. Blue says that Maura said yes. And then, the police asked why she called, if she knew Blue was going to be okay. Blue says Maura said that, maybe, Blue was only okay because she called. 

Blue says, “So, maybe that’s not a nice one, but it’s a good story, isn’t it?” 

Gansey tries to imagine growing up like Blue did. In a house full of magic, in a town where she’s known not because of her parents’ wealth but because of her mother’s proclivity for the future. He imagines what it would be like to be like Blue, whose mother took off into Cabeswater and became a part of their supernatural quest. He imagines what it would be like if his mother knew he had died eight months ago. 

“Yeah,” Gansey whispers. 

They’ve been whispering the whole time, but, as it turns out, it’s a futile effort. From the other bed, Henry says, “That’s nothing.” Then, he launches into a story about the time his older sister, Bella, ran away from home for three days. 

Gansey settles as he listens, presses further into Blue’s embrace. Today might not have gone to plan, the cave walls might have crumbled, but he survived. 

Eventually, Henry’s voice lulls him into sleep. 

Gansey wakes in the night with the moon full on his face. 

Except, he realizes, it’s not the moon. It’s his phone glaring at him with a message, bright in the still dark of the motel room and the night sky still persisting outside. Gansey fumbles out of Blue’s arms, just enough to reach his phone. First, he turns the brightness way down, so the moon passes from full to new. Second, he checks for the message that woke him. 

It’s from Ronan. It’s 3 AM in New Mexico and 5 AM back home. Meaning: Ronan can’t sleep. Meaning: he’s thinking of Gansey and Monmouth and shared bouts of insomnia and orange juice. Or, at least, Gansey hopes that’s what pushed Ronan to text first. His stomach lurches with the idea of an emergency, of some other motive for Ronan breaking his usual grudge against his phone. Gansey is quick, then, to grab his glasses, to make the screen legible in the dark. 

Ronan: i miss cabeswater give it back 

Gansey exhales in relief and in laughter. So, it was option one: Ronan is thinking of Gansey and Monmouth and shared bouts of insomnia and orange juice. 

Gansey: You would miss me more. 

Gansey misses Ronan like he’d miss his hands, like he’d miss his eyes, like he’d miss his lungs. Gansey misses Ronan like he misses Henrietta, like he misses Monmouth, like he misses shared bouts of insomnia and orange juice. Gansey misses Ronan like he misses home because, really, that’s what Ronan is to him.

Gansey is expecting a denial in return. He’s expecting a snarky comment. He’s expecting all of Ronan’s usual defense, bluster, walls up. That’s not what he gets, though. 

Ronan: yeah, i do

Gansey could cry, honestly. It’s been two months since the start of this trip, two months since they last saw each other. It’s the longest they’ve gone apart since the moment they met. Gansey wasn’t ready for it to hurt the way it does, like there’s literally a piece of him missing. It aches, this distance between him and Ronan and… 

Adam.

Adam left for Cambridge two weeks ago, Gansey realizes, belatedly. Adam has been gone for a couple weeks and Ronan has been left alone at the Barns and… 

Gansey: I’m still coming back. I promise. 

Ronan: yeah, i believe you

There’s something pointed about the phrasing, something about the specification, something about the you. Gansey, unfortunately, wouldn’t be surprised if Ronan was convinced Adam was never coming back. That’s just Ronan—he’s been scared of being abandoned since before Gansey met him. Gansey, unfortunately, also wouldn’t be surprised if Adam never did go back. That’s just Adam—he’s wanted out of Henrietta since before Gansey met him. It’s hard to imagine that Ronan would be enough to change that. It’s hard to imagine, but it’s not impossible. It’s not even unlikely. It seems the most obvious conclusion. 

Gansey will believe in Adam even if Ronan can’t. 

Gansey: Adam’s coming back too. 

Ronan: fuck off i didn’t say shit about parrish

Gansey: No, you didn’t. Good night, Ronan. 

Ronan: whatever old man

Gansey clicks off his phone, returns it to the bedside table, and returns himself to Blue’s arms. He turns to face her this time, and rests his head on her chest, where he can listen to her heartbeat. This time, it’s the steady thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump that guides Gansey into sleep. 

By some coincidence—or by something more than coincidence—the three of them sleep in the next day. They’re supposed to be driving across the state line into Arizona today, but they can hold off until tomorrow or they can drive through the evening. It doesn’t much matter when the itinerary of their trip has always been relaxed, has always been pressure free and built for delays like this one. So, it’s past noon by the time the three of them are awake, but it’s an insignificant detail, really. 

Gansey leaves Blue and Henry to laze, and goes out to find breakfast. He procures coffee for him and Henry, tea for Blue, and an assortment of breakfast sandwiches. It’s a little lackluster, but it’s enough to get them started for the day. Gansey returns to the motel room, finding that, as expected, Blue and Henry are still in bed. Blue sits up when she hears him come in, making grabby hands at the bag of food. Gansey sets the drink tray down, just to properly get in the door, and lets her take the bag and take first pick of the food. While she does, Gansey passes around the coffees and the tea. 

Breakfast—if it can still be considered breakfast at, nearly, 1 PM—passes in a comfortable sort of silence. 

“Thank you, both of you,” Gansey says, when the sounds of eating have quieted down to the sipping of drinks. He’s not entirely sure what he’s thanking them for. The phrase seems too small for all that they’ve done for him, but the previous day lingers in his mind like a looming cloud over head. He knows that he only got through it as unscathed as he is because of them, because of the combination of Blue and Henry and their combined efforts to take care of him, to look out for him. 

“Anything for our king,” Henry says. He’s smirking a little, knows exactly what he’s doing with that particular choice of words. He’s riling Gansey up, distracting him from the sincerity he was trying to broach. 

It works. 

“Oh, dont,” Gansey pleads, groaning a little in distress. It pools in his stomach, swimming with an embarrassment of his own making. 

Blue giggles, nudging Gansey with her toes. She says, “But, your majesty, we’re at your ser—” 

Gansey flicks her foot, cutting her off. She all but squawks in protest, making up for the purported slight by practically tackling Gansey. He nearly falls off the bed, nearly drops the rest of his coffee on her head as he gets shoved onto his back. Gansey gets a secure hold around her waist with one hand while the other holds the aforementioned coffee steady above them both. Blue laughs, hard, into his shoulder. He rolls them across the bed, so that Blue is no longer on top of him, so that his weight is balanced, hovering over her. 

Blue says, “All hail King—” 

Gansey kisses her quiet. She laughs harder into his mouth. 

“See what you’ve done, Henry,” Gansey says, panting a little. 

Henry doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he takes the half finished coffee from Gansey’s hand, and takes it for his own, downing the rest. Gansey makes an aborted noise of upset, but, really, it’s for show. Really, he doesn’t mind. Really, it’s the least of the repayment Henry deserves. 

With his arm now free, Gansey hugs Blue tighter, rolling again so she lays directly on his chest. Blue says, “Is it nap time already?” 

It might as well be. It can be anything they want. There’s no rules, no kings, no reality here.  

Sedona, Arizona is an energy vortex—layman terms for a point where several ley lines intersect. Gansey knew that, absently, before they arrived. But he didn’t know it in a way that mattered. It was a fact learned long ago and not forgotten, per say, but simply disregarded as irrelevant. 

It’s relevant now. 

Gansey feels it before they even enter the town. They get close, and he feels tingling up and down his arms. He feels a buzzing go up and down his spine. He feels laid bare, torn apart, ripped apart. He feels…

They enter Sedona. 

He gasps for breath, and then—

It stops. It’s like the wind is knocked out of him. Instantly, the electric feeling in his limbs, in his spine, in his heart, just, stops. The straying of time stops. The clouding of his mind stops. Everything, everything, everything. It all stops, and, for the first time since the first death, Gansey feels completely and totally and wonderfully normal. 

“Holy,” Gansey says, his voice a release of awe. He can’t manage anything else. The words are cut off as the reverence grows, grows, grows. It’s all he can do to keep driving, to not stop the car and get out right here, right now. 

“Gansey?” Blue tests. She sounds a little worried, a little nervous. She’s probably thinking about anxiety attacks and the cave of ravens and the Carlsbad Caverns. 

“You don’t feel that?” Gansey asks. He flicks his eyes to hers, through the rearview mirror. She’s already looking at him. Her brown eyes are cool with the reflection of the moon, warm with the feeling of concern. 

“Feel what?” she asks. 

“Nothing,” Gansey says, and he really means nothing. Not the nothing of too much, not the nothing of death. Just nothing. Just ordinary, ordinary, ordinary nothing. Is this how people feel all the time? 

Gansey is reminded of that dream. The dream of finding Glendower. The absence of pain, the lightness that bloomed inside him, the freedom of burden. That’s how this feels. This feels like bliss. This is the release from every ache he’s ever felt, every time he’s experienced backwards, every echo he’s traveled along. This is…

“Holy,” Gansey repeats. 

“You’re freaking me out, Gansey Three,” Henry says. “Care to explain what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” 

“Sedona,” Gansey tells them. His voice sounds different, even to himself. It sounds how he feels: reverent, awed, amazed. He sounds so captivated that he sounds far away. “Sedona sits at the intersection of seven different ley lines.” 

“Seven?” Blue repeats. Gansey looks at her again. She’s frowning now. “Why don’t I feel anything? Shouldn’t I feel, I don’t know, different?” 

It’s an interesting question. Gansey should probably care about finding the answer, but all he can think about is staying here and never leaving. All he can think about is how madly he wants to feel like this forever, like a whole person instead of one severed across several lifetimes, several timelines. 

It’s addicting, it’s addicting, it’s addicting. 

If Gansey never felt this way, he wouldn’t have ever known that he could, that he should feel like this all the time. But now that he knows? Now that he knows, he wants to live like this forever. He wants, he wants, he wants. He wants. He wants so badly it must actually be need. 

He can’t survive without this. How did he ever survive without this? How has he ever survived at all? All he does is survive, but how. But how. But—

“Gansey!” Blue shouts. “Slow down!” 

Gansey eases his foot off the accelerator as the Pigeon careens above 100 mph and then, too quickly to be comfortable, drops back towards 60. Gansey doesn’t stop driving. He keeps going, he keeps going, he keeps going.

He drives straight through Sedona. If he stays here any longer, he’ll never leave. He’ll never see the world. He’ll never live the way he wants; he’ll never live at all. Gansey forgets their plans of stopping for the night and exploring in the morning. He ignores Blue and Henry’s questions, ignores them calling for his attention. He just keeps driving and driving and driving. 

He drives out of the feeling of nothing and into the feeling of tickling arms, electric spine. He drives until that feeling begins to fade, too, and time slips again and everything goes sideways and—

It starts again, but Gansey is free. He pulls over to the side of the road and puts his head in his hands and. 

And he breathes. 

He’s himself again. He’s his again. 

Gansey gets out of the car. He paces along the side of the road. He listens to the sounds of bugs humming, other late night travelers driving by, Blue and Henry following him out into what might as well be the desert. 

“What the hell was that?” Blue asks. There’s no inflection to her voice. It’s all one straight tone of panic, of top volume, of highest energy. 

Gansey keeps his back to her. He can’t look at her right now. 

“Blue,” Henry whispers. And, even quieter, “Easy.” 

Actually, he can’t look at either of them. 

“Don’t, Henry,” Blue snaps. “He just almost killed us!”

“Yes, and we both know Gansey wouldn’t do that on purpose,” Henry reasons with her. He sounds so calm, so steady in comparison to her terror. Gansey can hardly stomach it. “So, let’s give him a minute.” 

Blue sighs, noisy and angry. But she doesn’t start up again. She goes silent, and, for a few minutes, that’s all there is. Silence. That’s all they are. Silent. They’re staring out at the dark horizon line and the rocky shapes of plateaus silhouetted by the night sky. Standing here like this, Gansey can pretend that there’s nothing in the world but the three of them. The stars wink down at them, and that’s all there is. Just Gansey, Blue, Henry, and the stars. 

What a wonderful world that would be. 

Gansey turns around. He looks at Henry because he still can’t look at Blue. He tries his best to explain, even though there’s nothing he could say that would ever be enough for whatever that just was. “I don’t know what happened. I just—” Gansey shakes his head. “We entered the intersection and all of the— the symptoms of Cabeswater just… stopped. I had so much ley line energy at my disposal that I felt, like, normal. Or how I imagine normal would feel.” 

Henry makes a soft sound of acknowledgment, a clicking of his tongue against his teeth, like tut. Then, “And the speeding?” 

“I already never wanted to leave,” Gansey says. “I had to… I just had to get us out of there. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m sorry. For putting us all in danger. I couldn’t think.” 

Blue takes his hand. Gansey finally looks at her. She doesn’t appear to be angry anymore. Blue presses up onto her toes and rests her chin on his shoulder. She whispers, “Y’scared the hell out of me.” 

“I’m sorry,” Gansey says again. It’s all he can think to say, but it’s not enough. 

“You were acting like Ronan,” Blue tells him. Gansey knows that it isn’t untrue. He feels, though, that the situation is more relatable to Adam. He felt like a man possessed, he still feels it just a little. It’s tugging at the base of his heels, like a shooting pain that he knows will ease if he turns around and takes them back east. 

Gansey says, “We’re not far enough. We need to keep driving.” 

“In a minute,” says Blue. “You can wait a minute, can’t you?” 

Gansey doesn’t know if he can, so he doesn’t answer her. She keeps holding him, though. And Gansey thinks that’s probably enough. He thinks he’d never leave her side if he could help it, so, if she’s staying, he’ll stay too. (Hopefully. Hopefully. Hopefully.) 

Gansey turns towards Henry again. He says, for the third time, but only to him now, “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine,” Henry says. Lie. Now that Gansey is calming, now that Blue is calm, Gansey can see the traces of fear in Henry that he didn’t see before. Henry is so good at faking calm. It’s barely there at all, but Gansey’s found it. His fists are tied in tight knots at his sides and his eyes are straining, like he’s fighting to keep from widening them fully. “I always hated Sedona anyway.” 

“Liar,” Gansey says. 

“Perhaps,” Henry shrugs. “Do you want me to drive?” 

Gansey’s not sure it’s the best idea when Henry looks like that, but Blue is too slow for the pace they need to set and he certainly can’t be trusted behind the wheel right now, so. 

So, he asks, “You’re okay to?”

“Sure,” Henry says. He’s not lying this time. 

They leave the edges of Sedona quickly after that. Blue won’t let go of Gansey, so the two of them pile into the backseat. Gansey rests his head against the window and Blue rests hers against his shoulder. Henry drives the Pigeon like he’s never been scared of cars—or anything—in his life. 

Gansey wishes it were true. 

With the horrors of Sedona abandoned behind them, they continue on to the Grand Canyon. It’s the exact opposite of the feeling of Sedona. Instead of the easing of symptoms, it’s the exacerbation of all of them. It’s like the lookout of Raven’s Point dialed up to eleven. It’s the most beautiful thing Gansey’s ever seen and he’s pretty sure, in some slow and horrible way, that it’s killing him. 

Gansey hears a whisper in his ear, but it’s just the wind. Gansey feels like he’s staggering, but it’s just the fear of heights he doesn’t have. Gansey feels lost in time, but it’s just…

There’s no excuse for that one. That one’s real. 

Henry takes a picture, and Gansey is certain that, when it’s developed later, they’ll all be able to see the dazed look on his face. He feels… he feels… he feels…

Tears prick at Gansey’s eyes and gather at the corners and cling to his lashes. 

Blue loops her arm through Gansey’s. Gansey tugs a little at her hold, to see if it will give out. It doesn’t. If anything, it goes tighter. If anything, this view might be killing Gansey, but Blue is pushing life back into him. Dying and living, over and over and over. Death and rebirth, again and again and again. 

The tears fall. They cling to Gansey’s nose, his lips, his chin. 

And then, they’re leaving the Grand Canyon. And then, Blue is behind the wheel and Henry is in the front and Gansey is in the back. And then, they’re entering California and turning in the direction of Joshua Tree Park. And then, they’re reaching the second leg of a trip made up of four parts. 

It’s Gansey’s third life. It’s the last one. It’s the one where end actually means end. Gansey’s trying, trying, trying to make the most of it. Gansey is trying, trying, trying to experience this last life in only one direction—forward and not back, straight and not circular. But, if that’s not possible, then he’s just going to experience. He’s going to experience anything and everything he can. He’s going to make it count. It’s going to mean something, this third of life of his. 

Third time’s a charm, as the people say. Three is a stable number, as the psychics say.

Chapter Text

Gansey was supposed to die wearing Henry Cheng’s sweater. Actually, he had died wearing Henry Cheng’s sweater—Aglionby raven over his heart and water damp on his shoulders. When Gansey tried to give it back to him, folded with neat creases, Henry had merely shrugged and said, “Keep it.” 

Gansey knew what that meant. He knew that Henry was maintaining eye contact on purpose. He didn’t want to look at the sweater. He didn’t want it back. But. 

“I can’t,” Gansey told him. 

He watched as Henry took a breath, deep enough it rattled his lungs, deep enough it made his shoulders shake like they were the ones cold from cave water and rain that should’ve dried days ago. (It wouldn’t ever go dry, Gansey knows now. Not so long as he survived that night on the side of the road.) Henry inhaled, exhaled, and then took the sweater from Gansey. He still didn’t look directly at it, but he pulled it over his head anyway. He got a little tangled in it in his haste, hair coming out fluffed and mussed and pretty. Henry gave Gansey another shrug as if to say, see. 

They didn’t talk about it again, but Henry keeps wearing the sweater. Wordlessly—as the most important things with Henry tend to be—he tells Gansey again and again, it’s okay and we’re all alive and no one’s dying in my clothes. Even when it’s too hot out for it and the sweater is permanently stained from that night’s adventures and it gets wrinkled in the hours spent sitting still in the engineless Camaro, Henry keeps wearing it and Gansey keeps noticing him wearing it. 

He keeps looking at him. And he can’t stop. 

Henry’s wearing it now, at the Griffith Observatory as September moves to make room for October, as the sun moves to make room for the moon. It’s chilled enough in this evening atmosphere that the sweater seems almost appropriate, almost at home here among telescopes and model planets—not that the weather has ever stopped Henry from wearing it. It’s almost right, and yet, here, amongst the stars, Henry looks uncanny. He’s otherworldly—a word that has never belonged to Henry Cheng before—with the raven crest on his heart and his hair down like it never was at school. He’s made up of incongruous parts, he’s two parts of himself that shouldn’t be able to coexist: the facade of Aglionby and the vulnerability of this road-trip. 

Gansey can’t stop looking at him, but he’s looking at Blue, too. 

Blue is so alive, here amidst the night sky. While Gansey and Henry are still tinted with Gansey’s death, Blue is free from it all. She’s not two pieces of two different people. She is one person who never could have been if she hadn’t left Henrietta. She is so herself here, so exposed, so true. 

She peers into every telescope, she reads every plaque, she smiles brighter than all the stars combined. 

When her eyes meet Gansey’s, he feels it down to his toes. He feels it at the base of his spine. His body aches with the sight of her, with the need to be closer. It’s like the draw of the ley line—and maybe that’s concerning, maybe that’s mirror magic, but Gansey is pretty sure it’s just love. He’s pretty sure it’s just chemistry and connection. It’s just the stability of being around someone who knows him—all parts of him, old and new and yet to come. It’s just the desire to kiss her, now that he can. He just wants to be close to her, but it’s not just her anymore. 

And so, when Blue bounds off to another room, Gansey doesn’t follow. Part of him longs to trail after her, but then Henry nudges him with a sweater clad shoulder—dry, Gansey reminds himself—and he can’t move. He doesn’t want to move except to move closer, to move into the contact. (He doesn’t. He stays perfectly still. Not leaning in, but not fleeing either.)

Henry doesn’t say anything, but Gansey doesn’t need him to. Gansey knows that Henry knows him, too. In the same way that Blue does, in the same way that Gansey knows himself. It should be uncomfortable, the intimacy of displaying himself to so many people at once, but, instead, it’s every wish ever granted. They both know his secrets. They both know him for more than what he presents himself to be—Henry had recognized his truth at once, Blue had taken a little longer to find it. But both of them have found him now. 

Gansey doesn’t know why he’s comparing. He thinks he should probably stop. 

But he can’t. He can’t stop measuring their smiles, can’t stop memorizing their eyes, can’t stop watching them both. He cannot get enough of them. He cannot ever be done with them.

“Should we follow Lady Indigo?” Henry asks. He turns to face Gansey, taking a step backwards, a step in Blue’s direction even as his eyes never leave Gansey’s. 

“Yes,” Gansey says. “We should.” 

And so, they follow her. 

Later, once they’re checked into the Glen Capri Inn, a motel just outside of Los Angeles, Gansey showers, and his mind spirals like the water spooling down the drain. 

It isn’t inherently wrong to look at a boy the way Gansey is looking at Henry. Gansey knows that, and it isn’t exactly… new to him either. He’s noticing Henry in the same way that he used to notice Adam—the fairness of his brows that made otherwise harsh features softer and stranger, the way the Henrietta landscape silhouetted him like he was born in its embrace, all the little things that didn’t matter. Nothing he saw ever helped Gansey to make any sense of the unsolvable puzzle that was Adam Parrish, but it endeared Gansey to him, made him want to linger when they’re knuckles bumped. (Gansey, in the present moment, runs his thumb across the knuckles of his opposite hand. He doesn’t realize he’s doing it and it doesn’t feel the same, but it eases the weight of missing him, them, Adam and Ronan.) 

Gansey stopped noticing all the little things about Adam sometime before his deal with Cabeswater, his sacrifice. Or maybe it was after—after the deal was through and Gansey knew he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t take it back, couldn’t fix it. Maybe it was then. Maybe Gansey was too busy noticing all the ways he was losing Adam to notice all the ways he was a field of dandelions half blown away, all the ways he was beautiful and enchanting and crush-worthy. 

Gansey is noticing Henry like that, though. He’s noticing all the ways Henry is peculiar and unexpected. He’s noticing all the ways he’s a Camaro wheel at the bottom of a lake and an adventure that hasn’t happened yet, all the ways he’s an impulsive thought and an unplanned stop on an unplanned road-trip, all the way he’s beautiful and enchanting and—

He’s noticing Henry like he could be the object of his affection, but he couldn’t. He shouldn’t, at least. Because Blue…

Gansey is reminded of Glendower and his infidelity, Gansey is reminded of how bitterly he judged his dead king. But it isn’t quite the same, is it? Because Gansey is noticing Blue, too. Just like under the cheap, buzzing lights of Nino’s when he met her for the first time. Just like the rush of the helicopter and the first walk through Cabeswater. Just like he’s been noticing her for every moment that he’s known her and every moment that he hasn’t yet. 

This noticing of Henry… it isn’t wrong. It isn’t inherently bad, forbidden, untoward. But it isn’t exactly right either, so Gansey buries the observations. He buries all the nonsensical things he wants to say. He wants to whisper in Blue’s ear about the way Robobee looks perched on the shoulder of the sweater Gansey had died in (magical and real all at once, delicate and deadly all the same), but it seems, at the very least, impolite to her to do so. He’ll just keep his mouth shut, he’ll keep watching, he’ll keep pretending that he isn’t. 

Gansey shuts the shower off. 

They’re hiking Griffith Park to see the Hollywood Sign, and Gansey is ignoring all of his feelings. He’s shoved them down deep inside himself, nestled alongside Glendower and wasps and everything that never was with Adam Parrish. He hides it all, and he plasters a smile on his face, and they hike. 

At the halfway point, Henry complains, “You know, I didn’t think this trip would amount to so much exercise.” 

“What, you thought Blue Sargent’s road-trip was going to include luxury hotels and lounging poolside so you don’t get your hair wet?” Blue asks. She’s laughing at him, but her voice is kind underneath it all. She’s teasing, just for the thrill of reaction, not for harm. 

Henry huffs loudly. “Because that sounds so horrible?” 

“Maybe if you had joined the crew team at Aglionby, you would actually have some muscle,” Gansey says. He hates what this reveals of him: that he’s noticed Henry’s legs, Henry’s arms. That he noticed Henry in high school too, that he noticed that Henry signed up and then crossed his name off. 

Henry guffaws. It’s a noise similar to the pshaw Gansey is used to from Blue. The thought of her habits rubbing off on Henry makes Gansey’s heart twist painfully, lovingly. Henry says, “I only ever almost joined because of you. Then I realized that the crew team started practice at 5 AM, and suddenly not even Dick Gansey was incentive enough.” 

Gansey chokes a little on his next breath. He covers his reaction by stopping for a rest, by retrieving a bottle of water from his pack, by downing half of it in three swallows. He passes the rest of it to Henry and watches, anticipatory, to see if he’ll drink from it. (He will, Gansey knows. He drank from Gansey’s coffee cup a couple weeks ago. There are hardly any boundaries between any of them anymore. Gansey is obsessed.) 

Henry drinks the rest of the water, throat bobbing in tantalizing fashion. 

Gansey tells himself not to think about it, but he can’t help himself. He can’t stop himself from imagining a version of Aglionby where Henry joined the crew team because of him—for him. It would be a version of Aglionby where early morning practices were spent getting to know Henry, slowly peeling back the layers of cheery smiles and activism to find the complicated truth underneath. The complicated truth that, just like the rest of them, Henry is made up of a handful of terrible hours and a list of contradictions too long to name. It would be a version of Aglionby where they were teammates instead of classmates, where they could’ve made the switch from acquaintances to friends much sooner.  

But then, would Gansey even want that? 

Gansey likes that Henry took him by surprise. Gansey likes that he was unexpected. Gansey likes that he didn’t go looking for Henry’s magic, but, instead, Henry came looking for his. Gansey likes that moment in the basement of Aglionby with Robobee in his hand and Henry asking Gansey to trust him. Henry asking for nothing more than someone to listen, someone to make him feel less alone, someone to share his secrets with. 

Gansey likes things as they are, but… Henry in the early morning light, Henry’s arms toned from practice, Henry bumping fists with Gansey the way the crew team always did. It’s a nice thought. It’s a nice fantasy and nothing more. It’s not something he wants if it means giving up this. Henry traveling the world with Gansey and Blue, Henry drinking from Gansey’s water bottle, Henry complaining with a beaming smile on his face. But it’s a nice daydream, nonetheless.

“Ready to continue?” Blue asks. She’s squinting, but Gansey thinks it’s from the sun more than suspicion. Gansey digs a pair of sunglasses out of his bag and sets them gently on her nose. She smiles at him. Blue plants a light, brief kiss on his jaw. 

“Ready,” Gansey says as they part. 

“As I’ll ever be,” Henry says, and then the three of them are off, towards a lookout and a view and the sign up ahead. 

It’s a nice reality. 

Gansey misses his mint plant. It’s not the act of taking care of it that he misses—although the routine of it was nice, the reliability of it was a comfort, the control over another life and the success in maintaining it was heady. It’s not the smell of it that he misses—although the sharp freshness always made his mind come to focus, the familiarity of the scent was always a reassurance, the predictability wasn’t bad in the mercurial life he led. Really, it’s the taste that he misses. It’s the scratchy texture of the leaf against his tongue. It’s the distraction of having something to do with his mouth that doesn’t involve speaking. 

Gansey takes to chewing on his lip, his tongue, the inside of his cheeks. Until, at one of their many grocery stops, Blue buys him a pack of gum. It’s mint flavored, but it’s not the same. It’s too artificial, it’s too sweet, it’s too manufactured in its perfection. It’s not what he misses, but it’s a better substitute than any of the others he’s found. It’s less destructive, at least. It’s enough, for now. And the gesture of Blue buying it for him is an added bonus. 

The only drawback: Blue kisses him less when he’s chewing gum. She kisses him more when he’s been chewing at his lip, when it’s a bit swollen with the continued onslaught of pressure. She soothes the dull ache with her own lips and Gansey… Gansey doesn’t buy another pack of gum after the first is finished. 

Gansey has forgone contacts since before Arkansas. He’s pretty sure he left his contact solution in a motel in New Mexico, but, if he did, it hasn’t been an issue. He’s been wearing his glasses because it’s just so much easier. Sure, they can be a bit of a nuisance when they hike for long hours and sweat makes them slip from his nose. Sure, there have been a few moments of panic when he hasn’t been able to find them. But, mostly, it’s better this way. He likes himself better with his glasses on, anyway. 

Blue has taken to sliding them from his nose before she moves in to really kiss him—as Henry had put it. Gansey’s pretty sure he’s developing a Pavlov’s dog kind of reaction to her touching the wire-frames. It’s all very unfortunate and, also, amazing. 

Gansey ditches the polos in California. Well, not entirely, but… mostly. The majority of his time is spent in chino shorts and t-shirts. Or, at the motels, worn—threadbare—pajama pants and t-shirts. Or, when it’s too hot, he dares to go shirtless. Sometimes, he misses the comfort of the familiar feel of the polos, he misses the cantaloupe and salmon and aquamarine colors, he misses the faux-confidence he once brandished so convincingly. But…

But Blue likes the t-shirts. Like at the Cadillac Ranch, she’s taken to pushing the sleeves up whenever she has the excuse of heat—less and less now that fall is tickling at the temperature. She rolls the sleeves up neatly and she pokes at his biceps and Gansey pretends that the whole thing doesn’t make him weak in the knees. 

Gansey’s abandoned the boat shoes, too. They’re impractical for the amount of hiking they’re doing. The shoes remain unused in his bag. Blue keeps threatening to accidentally forget them. Gansey keeps shrugging, like he’s daring her to. 

In essence: Gansey has been stripped down to his core. As their trip progresses, he keeps leaving parts of his shell behind. He keeps shedding more of his mask, and, in time, he thinks he’ll forget how it felt to ever wear one at all—a bit terrifying, when he knows Republican mixers and Gansey events are still waiting for him back in D.C.

But, for now, he’s content. For now, he is safe in the presence of Blue and Henry. Blue continues to show him—with a touch or two, with heavy glances, with words—how much she likes who he’s becoming. Who he’s always been, but who has been concealed under layers of responsibility and wealth. Henry, though, hasn’t reacted to the changes at all, like there’s no surprise and there’s no opinion to be had. Both are necessary, both are a balancing act. Both are essential to his progress, to the feeling of… security, safety. 

Something more. 

Gansey’s thinking about Sedona.

Not in a wishful way, not in a way of wanting to go back. He’s just thinking about the experience, about losing himself, about normal. He’s thinking about Blue, about why it didn’t affect her, about why it affected him. He’s thinking about the fear in her and Henry’s eyes that night. 

If he didn’t think Adam was busy at Harvard, if he didn’t know Adam wouldn’t appreciate him calling to talk about the day he was possessed, then… then Gansey would call Adam and he would ask him about the day he was possessed. He wants to know how Adam can still trust his hands, his eyes. He wants to know how Adam can survive knowing he hurt Ronan like that, hurt all of them like that—even though it wasn’t actually him. It wasn’t him at all, and none of them blame Adam. None of them are afraid of Adam.

The demon has been vanquished. Things might be different if the demon was still around. 

(Gansey doesn’t know who he’s kidding. They would all allow Adam to destroy them before they would be afraid of him, before they would hate him or begrudge him. At least, Gansey would let Adam destroy him before he thought negatively about him.)

For Adam, the threat has been destroyed. Gansey knows because he died for that certainty, but there is no certainty for Gansey. For Gansey, there is still fear—of himself, of ley lines, of life. Blue and Henry might be afraid of him, too. Gansey hasn’t asked and he’s not going to. 

Sedona still exists, and other energy vortexes are out there. It’s not unlikely that they’ll come upon another during the length of their travels. Gansey, absently, wishes he had his ley line map. Then, he could find those intersections and be sure to avoid them. Though, really, he knows most of the lines by memory. He, theoretically, should be able to recall where those energy vortexes lie—if he just put in the time, the thought. But he doesn’t. 

There are many things he could do to ensure they don’t have a repeat of Sedona. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to ensure they don’t have a repeat of Sedona. The part of him that is held afloat by ley line energy—the part of him that genuinely wanted to stay and never leave—refuses to be proactive. And that’s scary, that’s terrifying, that’s making Gansey sweat. 

Gansey needs the ley lines in a way that no one else can understand. Maybe Ronan could, but Blue and Henry certainly can’t. 

Blue’s not created by the ley lines. She’s supported by their energy and she’s made more powerful in their presence, but she lives without them. She is powerful without them. That’s why she’s different from Gansey—after all, that is why she killed him, the first time their lips touched—so, surely, that’s why she wasn’t overwhelmed by the magic thrumming through the earth belonging to Sedona. Because she is part of that magic, because she doesn’t need it, because she wields it. 

Gansey is a product of that magic. He does need it. It wields him. 

Again, Gansey turns to Adam. The deal with Cabeswater. The ebb and flow, the back and forth, the synergy of their relationship. They both needed each other, in a sense. Cabeswater doesn’t need Gansey. Cabeswater died because of Gansey—for Gansey. 

Possibly, the ley lines are punishing him for that slight. Possibly, the loss of Cabeswater along their stripes has caused greater damage than anyone has realized. Possibly, the ley lines want him in Sedona so he can use Cabeswater’s energy all at once—like Kavinsky—until he drains it dry, until his heart gives out, until he dies for good. Possibly, then, Cabeswater would live on again without him, freed from a sacrifice it regrets making. Possibly, possibly, possibly. 

But this is all conjecture. There’s no fact, no evidence. There’s nothing supporting his theories. This is just the rambling of a mad man.

“Richard Gansey the Third,” Henry says. Robobee sits at the end of his outstretched finger. It seems like an offering, but Gansey’s not sure what it is that Henry is offering. “What are you thinking about?” 

“Sedona,” Gansey answers. He swallows heavily, like the word itself is a blade cutting into him. His chest hurts, his tongue bleeds. 

“It won’t happen again,” Henry tells him. 

“You can’t know that,” Gansey counters. He shoves his glasses up to his forehead, enough to rub at his eyes. The action is a release. His head was starting to hurt and the firm pressure helps to ease the pain. 

“Okay,” Henry says. Robobee has settled in his palm. Henry curls his fingers around the tech. “But, if it does happen again, Blue and I will get you out of the intersection. Even if we have to drag you kicking and screaming. You’re not going to lose your autonomy.” 

Gansey feels like he already has, though. He feels like he lost something when Cabeswater became him. And, since Cabeswater experiences time in a circle, whatever it was that he lost… he can’t remember. Because it was never his, because it was lost before he ever had it. 

“You’re freaking Robobee out.” 

Gansey cracks the smallest of smiles. “And by Robobee… do you mean you? Am I freaking you out?” 

“Just a little,” Henry says. He opens his fist and Robobee flies towards Gansey. It means something that he doesn’t panic. “But I kind of like it.” 

Gansey stops thinking about Sedona. He thinks about Henry instead. It’s maddening in a different way. 

They couldn’t travel through California without hiking through Redwood trees. Gansey, despite all that he’s seen before, has never seen them. He’s in awe of their stature, their circumference, their grandeur. He knew Redwood trees were notoriously gigantic, but their reputation didn’t prepare him for their reality. Gansey stands beside one and stretches his neck back, back, back. And he can still barely see the tree tops. Gansey stands in front of one and stretches his neck left, left, left. And he still can’t see around the other side. The trees are huge and Gansey feels tiny in their presence. 

It’s a good feeling. It’s good to feel insignificant when, before, he has felt like the fate of the world rested upon his shoulders—and that’s not hyperbolic. He’s pretty sure that was once true, but… but it definitely isn’t true now. Now, there’s no demon and no sacrifice to be made. Now, Gansey is surrounded by giant trees and he is protected and safe and he doesn’t matter. 

Henry takes a classic picture of Blue with her arms—attempting—to wrap around the trunk of a Redwood. She looks smaller than usual at the base of the giant tree, and happier than ever surrounded by nature so ancient and awe striking and breath defying. She’s not smiling so much as she is just… at ease. She isn’t giddy so much as she is just… relaxed. She is calm and gentle in these woods. 

She’s perfect, really. She makes Gansey falter. 

Gansey should be looking at the trees, but he’s looking at her. He can’t tear his eyes away. He can’t stop living this moment on repeat: her joy, her comfort, her so fiercely belonging among trees that make Gansey feel like he’s surrounded by magic. Trees that make Gansey feel like nothing matters more than the next second, and the one after that, and the one after that—in order, no less. 

Gansey kisses Blue against one of the Redwoods. It feels like it’s against the rules, against the law. It feels like they’re intruding on a sacred stomping ground, but he just can’t help himself. He needs to kiss her here, so he does. 

Gansey is, distantly, aware of the sound of Henry taking their picture. Gansey is, distantly, aware of other hikers passing by. Gansey is, distantly, aware of life outside this kiss. But it really is distant, it really is far. At the forefront is Blue. At the center of Gansey’s world, at the heart of it all, is Blue and her lips against his. 

It’s a juvenile kiss, really. It’s the indulgence of kissing when one should be doing something else. It’s immature and it’s free and it’s everything they never got to have when they were so burdened in high school. Blue laughs into his mouth and Gansey laughs into hers. They share the same breath, the same spit, the same experience of bark pressing into skin. They share this moment and they part panting with it. 

Blue says, “And then we’ll never speak of it again.” 

Gansey kisses her again. 

Henry smiles differently when he’s smiling at Blue than when he’s smiling at Gansey. When it’s Blue, it’s like he’s trying to fight it off until the very last second. The grin cuts through his expression, from nothing to everything all at once. Like, one second there was nothing and then the next: teeth and amusement and smiling. When it’s Gansey, it’s the opposite. It’s a slow burn when it’s Gansey. It starts with a twitching at the corner of his mouth, with the slightest squinting of his eyes, with his jaw ticking. The grin takes over so slowly that Gansey could stop to draw each part of it, could chart the progression with scientific accuracy. With Blue, he tries to hold it back, and fails. With Gansey, he just lets it happen, like he knows anything else would futile. With Blue, it’s everything all at once. With Gansey, it’s everything at a drawn out and indulgent pace. 

Blue smiles differently at both of them, too. Gansey can remember the first time he made Blue truly, genuinely smile. It was the day they found Cabeswater for the first time, when they went to Harry’s for gelato after. He can remember, vividly, the thrill of feeling like he’d won something, like he’d been accepted into some secret club. Now, though, she smiles at him so much and so often that he can’t imagine it ever being a rarity. It’s just everyday when it’s Gansey. It’s just how it is: Blue Sargent smiles at him and Gansey loves her for it. Simple. With Henry, though, there’s layers. With Henry, though, it’s not that the smiles are rare, it’s that they mean more. The smiles are coated with language, like there are words written on her teeth. There’s a secret meaning to her grins towards Henry. Gansey doesn’t try to decode them. 

Gansey’s sure he’s got two different smiles for two different people, too. Again, he doesn’t try to decode them. He doesn’t try to track the movements within himself. He doesn’t try to understand his affection for them: where it stops, where it starts, where it overlaps, where it doesn’t. He doesn’t need to know. 

Gansey doesn’t borrow Henry’s camera very often, doesn’t take nearly as many pictures as he does, but he does try to capture as many of their smiles as he can. He wants to fill the pages of his journal with their joy and their happiness. He wants to look back at this journal when he’s old and gray and find that he made them feel so much that they couldn’t hide it, couldn’t keep it in, couldn’t help but plaster it on their faces. Or, even better, that they made each other feel so much that it couldn’t be concealed. 

The journal is starting to expand just as Glendower’s journal had. Now, when Gansey closes the cover, the pages press against it and work against gravity to keep it open, ajar. Slowly, day by day and addition by addition, Gansey is leaving pieces of himself between the pages. He’s pressing his feelings between the binding and they’re too much, too big to be contained. His merriment, his adoration, his sentimentality—all of it takes up so much space. So much space that he can no longer keep it inside himself. So much space that he’s leaving it in his journal too, to be carried within himself and with him too. Inside himself and on his shoulders. 

Gansey wouldn’t put his feelings down even if he could. He wouldn’t set Blue or Henry aside even if he could, even despite the heavy burden of his immense feelings. He wants to carry it—them. He wants to carry them with him. 

They’re midway through the California section of their trip when Helen calls for the first time since they left Henrietta. Gansey is, oddly, lucky in the sense that his family is used to him taking off to new locations, disappearing without much communication shared between them. They’re used to Gansey picking up the phone when they call or answering a text when they send one, but him not initiating much, if any, contact in return. He never does it on purpose, and he knows it makes him kind of a terrible son and sibling, but he can’t seem to form a better habit. When he’s traveling, all of his attention goes to his setting and his companions. His world narrows down to the world around him, and the realities of home escape him. In short, he neglects the rest of his life. (It’s a wonder, really, that Gansey has been so good at keeping in touch with Ronan and Adam. But, then again, they’ve always meant more to him than his parents or Helen did. Again, he’s a terrible son and a terrible sibling.)

So, Gansey’s family is used to this. This being: nearly four months into the road-trip, and Gansey hasn’t reached out once. They respect that this is just how Gansey is. They respect that this is how he needs it to be.

Helen, however, is the one most likely to encroach on Gansey’s needs with her own, so he’s not surprised when she’s the first to call him. Like always, he answers after only the second ring. He has no interest in ignoring her; in fact, he wants to talk to her. Like always, as soon as her name flashes on his phone, he remembers how much he cares for her, how much he misses her. 

“Hi, Helen,” Gansey answers. 

If this was years ago, back when Gansey was fourteen and far too young to be traveling on his own, Helen would say something like: oh, you remember me, do you? or oh, you’re still alive, are you? But, now, Gansey is plenty old enough to be traveling and Helen is plenty used to having a terrible brother as her sibling. So, instead of snark, Gansey gets a simple, “hello, Gansey,” in reply. 

“How is D.C.?” Gansey asks. Helen likes it when Gansey asks about her life. Probably because she knows he’s awful at it. Probably because she knows her life would kill him if it was his, too boring and too stagnant and too performative. 

“Too hot for October,” Helen tells him. “Mom is already talking about re-election. Dad had a health scare. I’m planning a wedding for a democrat’s daughter, and Mom is spiraling because of it.” 

“Is Dad okay?” Gansey asks. It’s the only part of the sentence that he really cares about. Their mother is always talking about the next campaign. She’s like her son in that way—she can’t sit still, can’t exist without a project. But his father…

The ugly feeling of reality nudges at Gansey. This trip has existed outside of the real world for so long. To have it knocking on Gansey’s door now? It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. 

“He’s fine,” Helen tells him. “He had a biopsy. The lump was benign.” 

Gansey doesn’t ask why he wasn’t contacted before now, why no one bothered to tell him that his father had a cancer scare. He knows exactly why they didn’t tell him, and he doesn’t need the reminder that he’s a terrible son and a terrible sibling. 

“That’s good,” Gansey says. 

“What state are you in now?” Helen asks. There’s a sigh to her voice, like she knows Gansey won’t ask anymore questions about D.C. and their parents, even if she wanted him to. He feels a little guilty, but he can’t think of anything else he might need to know. 

Maybe it’s not about need. Maybe it’s about want. Maybe Gansey is a terrible—

“California,” Gansey says. “It still feels like summer here. We’re headed toward the mountains tomorrow, though, so maybe it will be cooler.”

“Hm.” 

“You don’t have to talk to me about this if you don’t want to,” Gansey says. Probably Helen hates asking about his life as much as he hates asking about hers. Probably his life would kill her the way hers would kill him. 

“Oh? No, sorry,” Helen says. “I just got a text from my client. I’m listening.” 

Gansey doesn’t entirely believe her, but he talks for a few minutes anyway. About Griffith Observatory, about Redwood trees, about Chaco Culture National Historical Park. He doesn’t really mind if she’s listening, the pretense is pleasant enough. The idea of it is good enough to be real. It’s enough to satisfy him. 

Helen is a good sister, even if Gansey isn’t a good brother. 

The sweater isn’t the only article of clothing shared between them. When Gansey stops wearing the polos, he starts wearing Henry’s shirts and Henry wears his. The Madonna tee is a fan favorite, but Gansey thinks that Henry in a faded pink Vineyard Vines t-shirt is the best thing he’s ever seen. Until, of course, Henry steals Gansey’s favorite yellow sweater. Then that’s the best thing Gansey’s ever seen. 

And it isn’t just Gansey and Henry who are trading shirts and sweaters like comments about the weather—casual, quiet, subtle, full of implications about how the rest of their day is going to unravel. Blue is in on it too, and, perhaps, even more than faded pink Vineyard Vines or yellow sweaters, that’s Gansey’s favorite part of this. 

This being Henry wearing a cropped, crocheted thing of sage green that probably sits too short on Blue’s ribcage and definitely sits too short of Henry’s. This being Blue wearing a pair of Henry’s boxers as shorts as she sprawls out in the back of the Pigeon, dimpled knees propped against the back of the driver’s seat. (Gansey can’t see her legs like this, can’t even feel their weight, but he knows they’re there. He knows she’s there. Because she always is. She’s always at his back, always at his side.) 

It’s a good thing that Gansey is focused on the road and changing gears in time. It’s a good thing that he’s focused on not killing all of them in a catastrophic crash. Otherwise, he doesn’t know how he’d choose. Between the skin of Blue’s legs and the skin of Henry’s stomach. Different shades of brown and both equally soft in appearance, equally demanding of Gansey’s attention—his touch, maybe. If he was bold enough. If he was brave enough. Which he knows he isn’t. 

Gansey isn’t bold or brave, so there’s no competition. There’s no choice to be made. It’s only Blue’s skin he touches, only Blue he openly admires. And, not long ago, that was out of the question. Not long ago, their touch was forbidden and their feelings were a secret they were trying desperately to keep hidden. So, it’s more than enough when he can put his hand on her knee. It’s more than he deserves when he can watch her and not feel guilty for the act. It’s more than he thought he would ever get. It’s everything he’s ever wanted. 

But it’s not all that he’s come to want. He’s greedy. 

Gansey reaches behind him, between the wall of the car and the edge of the driver’s seat. He’s reaching for Blue, yearning to hold her hand in the way they did when all of this was covert—out of sight and out of view from the others. She doesn’t take his hand. Gansey flexes his fingers, trying to get her attention, but her skin never touches his. 

Gansey pulls his hand back. He needs it to drive anyway. 

In the rearview mirror, Gansey watches as Blue stares, intently, at the strip of skin between Henry’s shorts and Blue’s shirt. Gansey smiles, just a little. 

The diner is decorated almost entirely in black and white and teal. The colors clash in a perfect combination of nauseating, headache inducing, and nostalgia invoking. As the three of them enter, they’re transported back in time. Even the music is old, an 80s hit that Gansey wishes he didn’t recognize. It’s going to be stuck in his head for the rest of his third life. 

The place is brash and loud and terrible. Gansey loves it. He loves places like this, places like Nino’s and Harry's and Henrietta itself. He likes places that are dedicated to being brash and loud and terrible. They are what they are and they don’t change for newcomers, for money, for anything. Gansey likes that places like this exist in every state and every county and every town. They’re a constant. Despite being brash and loud and terrible, they never seem to go out of business. Diners never seem to die. 

The waitress—Gansey does not flirt with her—takes them to a slightly sticky and alarmingly teal booth. She passes around menus, but Blue is already starting to order, like she’s an expert in this place and its options, like she’s been here before. (Her eyes cut to the menu every few seconds, so Gansey knows she’s reading as she goes. But. Still.) 

Blue orders for all three of them. 

For Henry: a BLT and a dairy free milkshake—he’s lactose intolerant, even though he pretends not to be. For Gansey: a grilled cheese and Coca Cola—he’s not lactose intolerant and he misses Adam. For herself: a tuna salad sandwich and a strawberry milkshake—because she is bold and brave. 

Gansey can hardly complain about Blue usurping his order when she’s gotten him exactly what he would have wanted. A glance is shared between Gansey and Henry, furtive as they sit on one side of the booth and Blue sits on the other, attention stolen by the clarifying and confirming waitress. The glance says: whoa. Nothing more and nothing less. Henry smiles—his Blue smile, sudden and all at once. Gansey smiles back, a little more haphazard and self conscious in proximity to Henry’s blinding joy, but genuine all the same. 

The waitress leaves, and Blue turns to face her boys once more. She sees them smiling and she smiles too. For a moment, Gansey thinks she’s not going to say anything at all. But then, she tips her head to one side, and checks, “All good?” 

“Good,” Henry echoes. 

“Perfect,” Gansey tells her. He stretches his legs out, loops his ankles through Blue’s. Her smile widens. 

She likes this, Gansey realizes. She likes to be the one to speak up for them, the one to be in charge—in a low stakes sense, in this case. She likes that she was right. She likes what it means: that she knows them so well. She knows them in tangible and proven ways, in ways that can’t be taken from her. She knows them like she knows herself, almost. 

Gansey likes it, too. 

In high school, Gansey spent a lot of time studying his friends. Learning their behavior, their tells, their habits, their flaws. It always felt like a one-sided endeavor. Like he was learning them but nobody was learning him. He knows, now, that that’s not entirely true. He knows, now, that they knew him better than they could’ve ever known someone they weren’t trying to know. But, still, in high school, Gansey was always begging to be understood. He was constantly hoping and praying that someone would look past his exterior to see what lies beneath. He was constantly manipulating his space, his car, his belongings to reflect who he thought he really was, who he really wanted to be, who he wanted someone to see. Someone to know. 

Gansey prayed to a God he doesn’t quite believe in, and Blue came through. Henry showed up, too. 

Before he could register that it had happened, they knew him. It was mortifying. It was electrifying. It was terrifying. It was wonderful, beautiful, perfect. 

And they still know him, and they know each other. Enough to order each other dinner and wear each other’s clothes, enough to travel the world in each other’s company and never get bored, sick, tired. Enough. 

Blue has stolen Henry’s hat. It’s this khaki colored bucket hat that looks sickeningly good on him, and Blue has stolen it. Not to wear, but to use as a frisbee. 

They’re hiking again today, up trails and through trees and over roots. They’re getting close to their final destination, but the hike has been a long one and they’re all a bit exhausted. Blue, it seems, has taken matters—and Henry’s hat—into her own hands. The goal: breathe some life back into them. Her success rate: one hundred percent. 

Blue tosses the hat-frisbee over to Gansey. He catches it with a triumphant sort of laugh. Henry is trying to maintain his annoyance, but Gansey can see his chest twitching with aborted laughter of his own. Gansey throws the hat-frisbee back to Blue. She stumbles to catch it, it nearly slips from her fingers. She successfully lauds it over her head. 

Henry huffs. He stomps his foot a little. It’s very endearing. “I liked it better when you two were being pretentious about the— the sacredity of nature.” 

“Sacrality,” Gansey corrects him. Sacredity is not a word. 

“What?” Henry asks. 

“Sacredity isn’t a word,” Gansey tells him. With ease, he catches the hat-frisbee as Blue throws it again. “It’s sacrality.” 

“Okay, Mr. Valedictorian,” Henry snarks. He lunges in front of Blue when Gansey careens the hat-frisbee, but the arc goes long, over both of their heads. Blue elbows Henry to get to it first, to collect it from the forest floor. 

“Adam was the valedictorian,” Gansey says, even though Henry knows that. That’s not the point Henry is trying to make, but Gansey can’t help but be difficult. Gansey wonders, absently, if this counts as flirting. He hopes it does. He hopes it doesn’t. 

“Don’t be so particular,” Henry complains. He looks like he’s trying to decide whether he’s allowed to tackle Blue to the ground or not. Gansey hopes he does. He hopes he doesn’t. “You know what I meant.” 

“I do,” Gansey says. It feels important to say as much, feels important to assuage Henry. It feels important to tell him that, yes, Gansey knows what he meant. Yes, Gansey understands him. Still, he adds, “It’s an important distinction, though. I don’t want to take credit for something I didn’t earn. Adam worked hard.” 

“Yes, and the sun shines out of Parrish’s ass, too, I’m sure,” Henry says, without any malice. “Now,” Henry swivels his tone to speak to Blue. He extends his hand to her, open and waiting. “My hat?” 

Blue slaps his hand, half high five and half dismissal. She swats him away and presses up onto her toes. She ruffles Henry’s sweaty hair and places the hat on his head herself. She takes a moment to adjust it, so it sits just right. She drops to her heels, then—pleased with herself and her handiwork. 

Blue is treating Henry like they’re already dating. She’s treating Henry like he’s their boyfriend, Gansey realizes. (Their boyfriend? Or her boyfriend? Oh, God.) It’s been going on for weeks. It’s been going on for longer than Gansey had time to notice, for longer than he had time to notice that he was doing the same—or, at least, he was wanting to do the same. Gansey’s not sure if he’s been flirting with Henry, but this is definitely Blue flirting. (Right?) 

Gansey’s chest feels tight, but in a good way. Gansey’s heart is beating hard, but in a good way. Gansey is terrified, but in a good way.

Blue isn’t just stealing Henry’s hat and ordering his food and wearing his clothes. It’s more than that. There’s more to the way she’s gone circular in the progression of relationships. It’s not just hats and food and clothes, it’s the way she goes out of her way to let him sit in the front seat of the car. It’s the way she goes out of her way to touch him—a head on his shoulder, a hand on his—when he’s upset and failing for words. It’s the way she goes out of her way again and again and again. 

It’s the way she shares Henry’s bed when Gansey can’t sleep. Like now. 

The first time, when it wasn’t about insomnia but instead it was about comfort, they started with a healthy distance between them, an innocent gap between their bodies. Now, several months into the trip and several nights of insomnia behind them, they’ve stopped being quite as polite. There are remnants of their hesitance still—in the fact that they never spoon, in the fact that Henry always keeps his shirt on, in the fact that they try to avoid bare-skinned contact—but most of the pretenses of distance have been abandoned. Mostly, Blue will put her hand on Henry’s stomach. Mostly, Henry will loop his ankle over Blue’s. Mostly, they will gravitate closer and closer as sleep gets further and further from Gansey. 

Until they end up like this: Blue’s arm wrapped around Henry’s waist, Henry’s leg wrapped around Blue’s knee. Blue’s head on Henry’s shoulder, Henry’s face buried in her ticklish hair. Blue’s breathing in sync with Henry’s, Henry’s breathing in sync with hers. 

Gansey would like to carve a space between them, like a stream running through a mountain. He’d like to find a home between them, but he’d also like for the both of them to sleep. And that won’t happen if he’s there—after all, Blue is only sharing with Henry because Gansey was keeping her awake. (Or maybe that’s just a convenient excuse. Gansey wouldn’t mind if it was.) 

Gansey is stupid about a lot of things. Money. Adam. Glendower. Life. Gansey doesn’t want Blue and Henry on that list. He wants to do this right, but he’s not even sure what this is. Blue is treating Henry like their boyfriend, but Gansey’s pretty sure that’s against the rules. Gansey’s pretty sure you get one partner, and the rest is actually illegal in America. Gansey supposes they could leave America. Or just not get married. 

Married. 

Christ, he needs to cool it. He needs to take a walk. He needs to run a lap. He needs to stop thinking about Henry in a wedding ring, Blue in a wedding ring, himself in a wedding ring. He needs to sleep. 

He needs to sleep between them. 

Gansey feels like he’s losing his mind. It’s probably just the sleep deprivation, but also… also, Henry’s lips are open now and he has Blue’s hair in his mouth. It’s disgusting and awful and wonderful. 

Gansey needs to stop. He needs to make it stop. He needs to look at something else. His phone will have to do, though he longs for his cardboard Henrietta. 

Gansey: How’s my plant? 

Ronan: you can just ask how i’m doing, we don’t have to do this whole song and dance every time

Gansey: I already know how you’re doing. I genuinely want to see my plant. 

Ronan: oh yeah? how am i doing then?

Gansey: You’re miserable at the Barns by yourself but you’d be even more miserable anywhere else. 

Ronan: fuck you

Gansey: You should’ve just told me how my plant was. 

Ronan: your plant is fucking fine asshole

Gansey: Glad to hear it. 

“Gansey,” Blue’s voice comes soft and tired. She’s barely awake, just rousing between one sleep and the next. “Go to sleep, darlin’.” 

“Okay, Jane,” Gansey says, like it’s that easy, like he has a choice. Gansey clicks his phone off and watches as Blue readjusts. Her hair is pulled from Henry’s mouth as she turns towards him instead of away. Her nose digs into his chin. Gansey can’t understand how they can possibly sleep that close. Gansey can’t understand how they can possibly sleep at all. 

Henry is driving them to their next destination. He doesn’t drive much, even though Gansey taught him and he’s proved himself to be proficient. He only drives when they need him to—which, really, has only been the one time, when Sedona still pulled at Gansey’s fraying threads—and when he needs to. When Henry needs the thrill of it, when he needs to feel the nonexistent engine thrumming under his control, when he needs to be afraid and happy. That’s when Henry drives, and it always transforms him. 

He’s still tidy, still put together, still (seemingly) classic Aglionby diversity. His secrets are still perfect in their concealment. His fear is still tucked close to his chest, like a bee cupped in his hands. He’s still calm. He’s not wild. He’s not manic laughter like Ronan or a beaming smile like Gansey or frantic shouting like Blue or stolen betrayals like Adam. He’s everything he always is and yet… something more. He’s an enigma, really. Gansey has never seen anyone push to over 80 mph without reaction, but Gansey has never met anyone like Henry. He’s unexpected. Always, every time. 

Henry was terrified the first night he met Blue, when he was struggling with a fancy car he didn’t want and didn’t need, when he was calling for Gansey’s help on the side of the road. Probably he’s still terrified now, but he’s a caricature of confidence, a facade of facility. He’s afraid and he’s happy. He’s pushing himself as he’s pushing on the gas, pushing them faster. He’s living with it. He’s learning his limits and then going a little further, a little further, a little further. It’s practiced in its success, it’s habit in his ability to do just enough to terrify himself without shattering completely. In turn, he becomes mesmerizing, captivating, bewitching. He’s everything at once. He’s so much Gansey can’t keep up, can’t catalog it all. 

Blue’s in the passenger seat, this time. She usually is when Henry is the one driving. Because Gansey likes it that way. He likes to be able to see them both—Henry behind the wheel and Blue beside him, a fortuitous combination that focuses most of the objects of Gansey’s affection into one dreamt up Camaro. Henry: safe, secure, stupidly nonchalant despite it all. Blue: an echo of everything Henry isn’t showing, a gateway to the horror he always carries with him. Blue is gripping the door handle for support as they careen faster, Blue is turning down the radio so her shouted navigations can be heard, Blue is watching Henry as closely as Gansey is. Blue isn’t steady, but she’s sensible. They’re both so sensible. 

Gansey watches, watches, watches. 

Gansey feels like he understands Ronan a little better this way, watching Henry or Blue drive the Pigeon. His car, even though Ronan gifted it to all three of them. It feels like his because it looks like his, looks like the Pig and everything it stood for. It feels like his because there’s no fear when he’s the one driving, but he likes that Henry and Blue drive it anyway. They’re terrified, but they know it makes him happy. They’re uncomfortable, but they’re just trying to understand him a little better. They’re doing it all for his sake. For him. 

It feels like a gesture, like a promise, like a hint at something more. It feels like they could be his, too. 

If only. 

Gansey goes for a walk. It’s not really just a walk, and they all know that. He needs some air, some space, some distance. Henry behind the wheel and Blue in the passenger seat, Henry in the Aglionby sweater and Blue in the Madonna t-shirt, Henry making room for Blue in his bed and Blue treating him like their boyfriend. It’s all too much for Gansey. 

They’re building towards something. He can feel it. He can feel the pulse of time within himself, can feel the momentum mounting. Something is going to happen soon, and Gansey wants to be prepared. Gansey wants to know for sure that this is… right. That he’s not going to destroy all the good that they already have. 

Gansey is scared.

And so, he goes for a walk through Dunsmuir, a town in California. He’s not looking for anything particular. Except, maybe, to get away for a while—hopeful that, when he’s not eternally caught between watching Blue or watching Henry, clarity will find him. He’s not looking for anything, but he finds a psychic’s shop. There’s a glowing OPEN sign and, right below it, another that reads: No appointment needed, come on in. 

Gansey comes on in. 

The shop is warm and bright, heated by the sun blazing through glass windows. The space is lit only with natural light, and it makes the shop feel like an extension of the sidewalk outside, the world outside. The store is dressed in shades of white, royal blue, and deep yellow. A woman sits at a table in the back corner, a little privacy partition nearly blocks her from view. 

“Hello,” Gansey greets her. He’s lost some of his Southern charm, but none of his Southern accent. It leaves him sounding tepid, nervous. 

“Come in, dear,” the psychic—Gansey assumes—says. She stands from the table, and she’s much taller than Gansey was anticipating. They’re probably the same height. She gestures across from her, and says, “Take a seat.”

Gansey crosses the room to join her. The table is small, rectangular, covered in a table runner decorated with white lace. It contrasts nicely against the table’s dark wood. Gansey finds himself fiddling with the cloth, the holes of the lace pulled through and off his fingers. It snags a little, cuts a little. 

“Hm,” the psychic says. (She doesn’t tell him her name, and she doesn’t ask for his. Gansey’s not sure he likes that. The anonymity feels… impersonal.) She pulls her tarot cards out of a knit bag on her shoulder—Gansey hadn’t noticed it before. The bag is tiny, custom made to fit one thing and one thing only. She shuffles the deck, then hands it to him. 

Gansey shuffles on instinct. 

“You’ve done this before,” the psychic says. It’s not a question. 

Gansey nods. He hesitates before speaking, wondering if it’s a good idea to share excess information. The more he tells her, the less she’ll have to prove. In the end, he says, “My girlfriend—” the word isn’t enough for Blue, but it’s the only one he has “—comes from a family of psychics.” 

“Ah,” she intones. He holds the deck out to her, and she takes it from him. “Five cards,” she decides. 

It seems like a lot, but Gansey trusts her expertise. Probably he shouldn’t. Probably he should be skeptical of the first psychic he found. But, then again, he wasn’t looking for a psychic. Perhaps, she found him. 

Gansey draws the first card. The Page of Wands. 

“Yes,” the psychic says. “That’s you. You’re an explorer.” She hums in a steady, pulsing rhythm. It reminds Gansey of an ancient chant. “You have an eye for the big picture. You have a proclivity for the beginning and the end, but you struggle with the middle. You stay there too long. You are afraid. You are dormant.” 

Gansey laughs a little. It’s a shallow noise of surprise. If Ronan were here, he would say this was too vague, too general. He would say these words could apply to anyone, but Gansey knows they apply to him. Both parts of him, really. The Cabeswater part of him: the part of him that can see time in every direction. The human part of him: the part of him that, really, never wanted to find Glendower at all. 

She squints at him. She swallows. She says, “You do not have a natural gift for clairvoyance, and yet… hm. Your energy.” 

Gansey knows what she’s sensing, but he has no interest in telling a stranger about the ley line forest that sacrificed itself for him. He stays quiet, lets her think, lets her come to her own conclusions. 

“Something is within you,” the psychic tells him, finally. She doesn’t linger on the revelation, though. She moves on. “You are in need of courage. Yes? Yes. That’s why you’re here.” 

Gansey nods again. There’s a pause, and then, without prompting, he draws the next card. The Page of Cups sits on the table beside his Page of Wands. A man holding a stick in a barren land, a girl holding a cup. Gansey smiles before he can think better of it, laughs before he can stop himself. 

“You know this card,” the psychic surmises.

“This is my girlfriend’s card,” Gansey tells her. 

The psychic has nothing more to say about the Page of Cups. Instead, she directs, “Draw again.”

Gansey does. A third card joins the rest. The Knight of Cups: a knight on a horse with a golden cup in his hands. Gansey can’t help but notice the two gilded pieces in these last two cards, the obvious link between them. 

The psychic does her stuttering hum again. Gansey watches as she closes her eyes for a long moment, and then, “The Knight of Cups is a messenger. In your case, this is someone who entered your life unexpectedly. Someone who came into your life to teach you something valuable, to give you something no one else could give you. You trust this person.” 

Henry. 

“Oh,” says Gansey. 

The psychic’s eyes glimmer. She tips her head back and forth. “Again,” she tells him. 

Gansey draws again. The Lovers come out to meet him. There are only two people depicted on the card. It rankles at Gansey, grates at his skin like sandpaper harshness. It feels like a cruel reminder. 

The psychic, to Gansey’s surprise, smiles. “So. Your page. Your knight. Two different people, yes?” she guesses—intuits. She points to each of the tarot cards: a girl with a golden cup, a boy with a golden cup. 

“Yes,” Gansey says. He sounds breathless. He feels breathless. 

“But similar feelings,” the psychic says, mostly to herself. She opens her mouth, she closes her mouth. She hums, long and even this time, no rhythm to it at all. She instructs, “Last card.”

Gansey draws. Death. Reversed. 

Gansey’s exhale catches in his chest, his throat. It stumbles forth like a broken, shattered laugh. 

“It’s not literal,” the psychic says. 

Oh, but it can be, Gansey thinks, but doesn’t say. All he says is, “What does it mean?” 

“You know what you want, but you are too scared to take it,” the psychic says. “Death reversed is about resisting change. In love, this can be a number of things. For you… hm.” She smiles. “For you, I will say: trust. Trust yourself, trust your Page of Cups, trust your knight. Do not be so afraid that you do not live. Time is not stopping for you, my dear.” 

Gansey swallows. 

He moves to stand. There’s nothing more he needs, really. There’s nothing more to be said. 

The psychic reaches out to grip his wrist. Her hold is a little too tight, a little too much to be friendly. Her expression has shifted, becoming intense. Less hopeful and more alarmed. She says, voice deep and resonating, “One more card.”

Gansey considers protesting, but, in the end, he draws a final card.

The Magician, also reversed. 

Gansey’s only a block away from the psychic’s shop when he pulls his phone from his pocket. He lets it ring against his ear, free hand scrubbing through his hair and his bottom lip tucked between his teeth. He feels undone. 

Adam Parrish answers after the third ring, “Hello? Gansey?” 

Adam’s voice sounds different, like his accent has been scrubbed down to nothing, sanded away to nonexistence. It makes his voice sound hollow, vague, strange. Gansey doesn’t comment. He just says, “Hi.” 

“What’s going on?” Adam asks. One word, and he knows that something’s wrong. One word, and he knows that this isn’t a call of leisure or catch up. 

Relief floods Gansey’s being. It’s always good to talk to Adam, it’s always good to ask for his help. He doesn’t always tell Gansey what he wants to hear, but he usually tells Gansey what he needs to hear. And when Gansey is at a loss, when he cannot see a clear path forward, Adam is always ready to be called upon. He always has something to offer. 

Gansey hesitates. He doesn’t know how to say this. “It’s about me and Blue, I guess. And Henry, too.” 

“Okay,” Adam says. There’s no tilting inflection. There’s no feeling embedded in the two syllables. It’s neutral, objective. 

Gansey doesn’t say anything. 

Adam sighs. He goes impatient, but not unkind. He asks, “Are you going to explain? I have a lecture in ten minutes.” 

“Right, no, yeah, sorry,” Gansey rambles nonsensically. He swaps his phone to his other hand and his other ear, shakes out his wrist. “It feels so wrong to talk about this, but I suppose… I suppose I have a bit of a crush on Henry. And I— I assume Blue does too.” 

“Okay,” Adam says. His vowels are stretched a little. Not quite Henrietta, but not quite Harvard either. There’s a reaction there, and Gansey doesn’t know if he likes it or not. “A crush on Cheng.” 

“Yes,” Gansey says. Then, “Don’t be an asshole. Please.” 

“I’m not being an asshole,” Adam says. “I don’t really know what you want me to say, though. Congratulations?” 

Gansey laughs. He misses Adam so much. He says, “I don’t know what I want you to say either. Tell me I won’t ruin everything if I make— make a move. On Henry.”

“On Cheng,” Adam repeats. It sounds a bit like he’s smiling, but Gansey can’t be sure. Adam exhales, and, apologetic, he says, “You know I can’t tell you that, but you don’t need my approval, Gansey. You never did.” 

Gansey begs to differ. Again, he doesn’t actually respond. He stays quiet, waiting for Adam’s input. Because, even if he doesn’t need it, he does want it. 

“Look: you know what you want. You know whether it’s worth the risk,” Adam says. “You’ve got all the answers in that head of yours.” 

You know what you want. 

The same words the psychic just used. 

Coincidence. 

“Okay,” Gansey says. His mouth is too dry for anything else. He can feel his heartbeat rabbiting in his throat, beating against his ribcage. It’s trying to escape, it’s trying to run back to the motel, back to Blue and to Henry.

“Is that what you wanted me to say?” Adam asks. Gansey can hear movement on the other side of the phone, like Adam is walking. 

“Yeah,” Gansey says. “Yeah, that was perfect.” 

“Great. I’ve got to go now. Bye, Gansey.” 

“Bye, Adam.” 

You know what you want. Do not be so afraid that you do not live.

Gansey is fine, until he isn’t. He returns from the psychic’s, he joins Blue and Henry in getting ready for their late-afternoon hike to Mount Shasta. He feels jittery with the emotional turmoil of the day. He feels nervous with the looming decision overhead, with the words of the psychic and Adam playing on loop inside himself. He feels a lot, but he doesn’t feel sick. 

Until he does. 

It starts slow—a knot at the pit of his stomach, an ache in the heels of his feet. Both are easily excusable. The first, excused by his lingering stress and anxiety. The second, excused by the physical stress of their trip and continued exertion. It’s nothing to write home about, so Gansey ignores it all. He’s fine. 

Until he isn’t. 

As he drives towards the mountain, the tightness in his stomach expands. It feels like a balloon growing in his abdomen, like an invisible force egging him on, on, on. In what direction, he isn’t sure. With what goal, he doesn’t know. The ache in his feet turns to burning. He instinctively draws off the gas pedal, and their speed drops considerably. This just makes the burning hotter, turning to scalding with lack of motion, lack of forward.

Gansey thinks about Sedona, but this doesn’t feel like Sedona. 

Entering Sedona felt like he was being recharged. It was a positive energy that eventually reached a point of neutrality, of nothingness. This, however, is nothing but negativity. This feels like he’s being drained, like he’s losing something. 

Gansey keeps driving. He doesn’t say anything to Blue or Henry. He thinks… he thinks it will pass in time. 

But it doesn’t. It gets worse, worse, worse. As they reach their location, as they begin to hike, as they ascend… Gansey feels dizzy. His head is spinning, swirling, clouding. He’s staggering. He feels like he’s going to pass out. He feels like he’s going to drop. 

His mind strays to decaying trees and black, black, black nights. His mind strays to fire, to smoke, to destruction. 

Gansey barely feels human. He can’t remember the last time he spoke. Was it to Adam? He can’t remember the last time he took a full breath. He can’t remember the last time he felt alive. Surely, this isn’t life. Surely, this is death. Surely, this is somewhere in between. Surely…

They breach the top of the mountain, and it stops. Gansey isn’t fine, until he is. 

It’s not like Sedona, but it’s similar. It’s Gansey at such a low point that no amount of power, strength, improvement could push him towards normal. Yet, the energy of this place is enough. It’s enough that he takes a full breath, that he feels closer to life than to death, that he’s able to speak. He says, “Whoa.” 

Blue’s hand rests at the small of Gansey’s back, slipped under his backpack to make it possible. Her touch is a soothing sensation always, but, today, it’s more. Today, it’s an amplifier of the feeling of okay that is finally coming back to him. Today, she takes him from just fine to content. 

Gansey leans into her. Her thumb traces circles around the knobs of his spine. 

You know what you want. 

This isn’t Gansey’s own voice. This isn’t the psychic’s voice. This isn’t Adam’s voice. This is a voice that Gansey recognizes like a long lost friend—or, perhaps, this is the voice of a memory that belongs to someone else, that belongs to some other form of Gansey or Cabeswater or both. This is a voice in Gansey’s head, and it should scare him. Probably it does, just a little, but mostly… 

Mostly, Gansey is remembering the Grand Canyon. He remembers standing on the brink of such wondrous nature and hearing the wind whisper in his ear. He hadn’t been able to listen, then, but he’s listening now. 

I know what you want. 

Gansey feels the previously loosened knot tightening up inside his stomach again. Expectant, shocked, still not entirely afraid. Mostly, Gansey is remembering being ten years old and dying. Mostly, Gansey is thinking of that voice, that hallucination, that reality. 

Glendower. 

The Voice scratches over Gansey’s awareness. It snags a little at his thoughts, cuts a little at his sanity. It hurts, but there’s no reason why it should. There’s nothing tangible, but it burns anyway. It’s fire and smoke and destruction. There’s nothing solid to the Voice, but Gansey knows it’s real in its depth, in its resonance. 

Do not be afraid. 

Gansey isn’t afraid. Mostly, he’s remembering that Mount Shasta is an energy vortex. Mostly, he’s realizing that they shouldn’t be here anymore. Trust, the psychic had told him. She wasn’t talk about this. She wasn’t talking about supernatural voices and supernatural energy lines and supernatural deaths and supernatural side effects. But it doesn’t matter. Trust, she had told him. 

Gansey is trusting his instincts, and, right now, his instincts are telling him to go.

“Back down?” he asks Blue or Henry or both.

He doesn’t want to alarm them, but, probably, they’re already alarmed. Probably they’ve been concerned since the moment he left the motel room without them this morning. 

“Yeah, love,” Blue says, “whatever you want.” 

They descend. The view of the world fades out behind them and, as they duck further into dense trees and quiet wilderness, the Voice loses its hold on Gansey. He doesn’t hear it again, but he can still feel it. Deep in his subconscious, lying in wait. 

Gansey is unsettled. Gansey is afraid. 

Until he isn’t. Until Blue takes his hand and Henry takes the keys. Until, silently, they acknowledge him with the message of: we see you, we’ve got you. Until, silently, they take over. Until Gansey crawls into the backseat of the Pigeon, glasses off and head buried in his hands. Until they drive far away from Mount Shasta. 

Gansey can feel his energy draining as they go, but, mostly, it’s a relief.

Sleep evades Gansey that night. It’s no surprise after the day’s events. He’s exhausted down to his bones with all that has occurred: with the psychic’s words, with Adam’s repetition, with not enough energy, with too much energy, with the Voice. He wants nothing more than to drift off to sleep, to forget it all for a few hours, but, of course, he can’t. 

His mind is racing. His legs are kicking. His body is screaming. 

Blue doesn’t leave his bed to crawl into Henry’s. Gansey keeps waiting for her to go. He can hear her breaths turning to huffs of annoyance, he can feel her adjusting every time he does. He knows she’s still awake. He knows he’s the reason she’s still awake. He’s keeping her up, and yet she doesn’t leave him. 

It’s a testament to how transparent Gansey is when it’s Blue who lies beside him. There’s nothing he can hide from her—his strange day included. She’s noticed, and she’s worried, and, now, she’s not leaving his side. Instead, she’s moving in closer to him. Instead, she’s got her leg hitched up around his hip and her arm like a weight against his chest. She’s warm at his side. Gansey can feel her pulse if he goes completely still. She’s the comfort he needs, but it’s not enough. 

The Voice is keeping him awake. 

Gansey hasn’t heard it again, but he knows, deep down, that he will hear it again. Not tonight, maybe not even soon, but eventually. Gansey has enough experience to know that it’s not going to abandon him that easily, it’s not going to leave him be.

The Voice is going to come back.

Gansey is perturbed by the thought, and yet he’s curious too. And yet, Gansey wants the Voice to come back. Because Gansey knows the Voice must be the one he heard the first time he died. Gansey believes that it’s the same voice because he wants it to be the same voice. He wants to be closer than he’s ever been to knowing, for sure, that he hadn’t hallucinated, that his quest for Glendower meant something. Something more than just death. 

Gansey needs it to have meant something. Otherwise, he’s wasted so many years. He’s thrown so much time away. 

Gansey might have a special relationship with time, but it’s still not stopping for him. It’s going to keep barreling ahead now, and Gansey’s only choice is to get on board or get left behind. He doesn’t want to be left behind. He doesn’t want to be forgotten. He doesn’t want it to be a waste. 

Gansey wants meaning. 

The Voice knows what Gansey wants. The Voice… maybe the Voice could give Gansey what he wants. 

Answers. Meaning. Answers. Meaning. Answers. 

“Dick Gansey,” Henry says. His voice is slurred a bit with tiredness, muffled by the pillow under his cheek. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything more. For a moment, Gansey thinks Henry is talking in his sleep. (He has no feelings about that, no thoughts about Henry dreaming of him.) For a moment, nothing. Then, “Come on.” 

Henry pushes himself out of bed, like he wasn’t halfway into unconsciousness just a second before. He shoves on his shoes and pushes his hair back from his eyes. He stands in the dark of the motel room, waiting for Gansey—expectant. 

Gansey doesn’t think. He pulls himself from Blue’s embrace, she kisses his shoulder as he goes. She whispers, to them both, “Be careful. Come back in one piece or don’t come back at all.” 

“Don’t worry, Sapphire,” Henry says. His tone ruffles with amusement and laughter. He’s endeared, Gansey realizes. “Go to sleep. I’ve got this. Gansey is in safe hands.” 

(Gansey’s cheeks feel warm. He feels strange, that Henry is talking about him like he’s not standing right there. He feels odd that Henry is promising to take care of Gansey in Blue’s stead. It feels like they’re encroaching on something more. Even though, Gansey knows, Henry is only stepping in so that Blue can get some sleep. That’s all this is. For now.)

Blue’s only answer is to roll over onto Gansey’s pillow. She rubs her cheek against the fabric and something fond flares inside Gansey—something that mirrors Henry’s ruffling voice. 

Henry nudges Gansey with his foot. 

Gansey puts his own shoes on, and he follows Henry out of the motel room, down the hallway, and out through the main entrance. Henry stands under the awning. His body is slanting, like he wants to lean against something, like he’s so exhausted he can hardly stand. And yet, he stands here with Gansey. 

The fresh air does wonders for Gansey’s mind. 

Gansey moves closer to Henry, lets their shoulders brush. Henry takes it as an invitation and leans some of his weight against Gansey. Gansey is tempted to wrap his arm around Henry. If Blue was here, he would. 

He would be brave if Blue was with them, but she’s not. So, Gansey remains a coward. A polite coward, but a coward nonetheless.

They don’t talk. There’s no need for words on a night like this one. They’re just two boys leaning against each other, watching the stars twinkling above them. They stand in silence for a few minutes, for a few hours. Gansey’s not sure, exactly. But they stand there until Gansey is yawning, and Henry is yawning, and the sky is yawning with the coming sunrise. 

Henry eases his weight from Gansey’s side and starts back to the motel room. Gansey follows after him. 

Gansey sleeps in Henry’s bed that night. Because he doesn’t want to wake Blue, doesn’t want to disturb her by returning to their mattress. Gansey, instead, curls in under Henry’s covers, fighting gravity and the instinct to curl into his chest, too. They don’t touch at all. They don’t graze politely or slowly inch closer like Blue and Henry do. They remain a respectable distance apart, even as Gansey craves Henry—his hands on him, his presence protecting him.

They don’t touch at all, but Gansey can still feel the phantom weight of Henry against him. Like he never left, like they’re still standing too close for comfort in the evening too cool for comfort. The fantasy soothes him to sleep. 

The woods are more crowded than any forest they have visited so far. It’s a shock, when they pull into the parking lot and find it full of other cars. It’s not that they haven’t interacted with other people since the road-trip began, it’s not that they haven’t seen other hikers on their journey, it’s just that it’s never been this crowded. Gansey manages to find a place to park the Pigeon, and, when he does, he swivels in the driver’s seat to look at Henry and Blue. They have similar looks of confusion written across their faces. Gansey feels his own brows furrow to match theirs.

“So,” Gansey says, dragging out the vowel. “Do we come back another day?” 

He’s not very keen on the idea of being encircled and surrounded and entrapped by so many strangers. He can’t imagine that the sanctity of nature would feel very protected, very conserved in the presence of so many individuals. 

Henry shrugs, deferring the decision to Gansey or Blue. In the back of the Pigeon, Blue says, “I’d kind of like to know what’s going on. Maybe it’s fun. Or interesting. Or—” 

She cuts herself off. She’s staring through the front windshield, eyes focused in her concentration. Gansey turns to follow her gaze, and finds a throng of what can only be protesters. They hold signs in their hands with catchy phrases like Save the Trees! and Deforestation is killing the planet! and FUCK CAPITALISM. (Some of the phrases are more clever than others.) Gansey looks back at Blue, but she’s got her phone in her hand and an angry look on her face. 

Gansey has a feeling he’s not going to like where this is going. 

She reads off from an article, “‘Citizens of Oregon gather in the Willamette Valley today to protest the logging industry’s continued exploitation of native, and soon to be endangered, black walnut trees.’” She looks up, gaze flicking from Henry to Gansey. Her eyes are awash with feeling—frustration, sympathy, hurt. There’s flames licking under the surface. Gansey recognizes determination when he sees it. Blue says, “We have to join the protest.” 

And that’s how Gansey finds himself chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon. 

He’s a little miffed by the whole thing. Not because he doesn’t believe in the cause, not because he wasn’t more than happy to step in and join the day’s protests, but because neither Blue nor Henry is chained to a tree. Blue has somehow managed to procure a sign and she’s standing among the protest’s organizers—like she’s one of them, like she’s been a part of this the whole time—waiting for the logging crew to come through with chainsaws and outrage. That seems like an ideal and reasonable spot for Blue to be, if Gansey is honest. Henry, however…

Henry’s got his camera out. He’s taking pictures of Gansey, laughing so hard he looks like he can barely breathe. 

Gansey says, “You know you could use your powers for good, right? Document the protest? Help raise awareness?” 

“Yeah, but this is so much fun,” Henry says, giggling still. 

An hour passes that way. It’s an hour before Gansey starts to realize the flaws in his predicament as his phone starts to ring in his pocket. Gansey’s arms are free from the chains, of course, but he can’t quite reach around them to retrieve his phone. Gansey has no choice but to let the call go to voicemail. It can’t be that important.

His phone starts ringing again. 

“Henry?” Gansey calls out. Henry, at some point, had moved onto photographing Blue. But he’s stayed close to Gansey, keeping an eye on him. Gansey’s doing his best to ignore how that makes him feel. 

“Yeah?” Henry asks, lowering his camera, letting it hang heavy on the strap around his neck. 

“My phone,” Gansey says. 

Henry rushes over, and Gansey sort of hates everything as Henry reaches into his pocket to get it for him. The weather is too perfectly mild for Gansey to be blushing like this. Henry puts his phone right in his hand and, kindly, doesn’t comment on Gansey’s fading composure. 

Gansey manages to answer the call in time. His voice sounds croaky when he answers, “This is Gansey.” 

He clears his throat. Henry smiles at him. 

“It’s Declan,” the caller identifies themselves. Gansey is caught between groaning in exasperation and flaring with anxiety. Ronan. “Ronan’s been banned from Harvard.” 

Gansey’s exasperation wins out, making itself known in a soft scoff. (He loves Ronan. So much. But this is… typical, not at all unexpected.) “What happened?” 

“He couldn’t control his dreaming,” Declan says. He sounds the same as he always does: dull, arrogant, mad at Ronan. Gansey wants to remind him that Ronan wants to control his dreams, but he knows there’s no use getting between the Lynch brothers. Gansey tried that enough in high school, never to any amount of success. So Gansey merely listens as Declan says, “He’s been moping around at the Barns since the weekend. I can’t get through to him, but I was hoping you could? Just— tell him to get out of bed.” 

Gansey wants to say that he’s done playing parent to Ronan’s petulant child. He wants to tell Declan that Ronan is an adult that can make his own choices—whether or not Declan or Gansey agrees with those choices is irrelevant. He wants to no longer feel responsible for Ronan, but, the truth is: as long as Gansey loves Ronan, he will worry, and, as long as he worries, he’s going to step in. 

He’s never going to stop loving Ronan. So. 

So, “Okay. I’ll text him.”

Declan doesn’t thank him. Gansey isn’t expecting him to. They hang up without saying anything else. 

Gansey has to type one handed, so the whole thing is slow going, but, eventually, he manages the message. 

Gansey: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed. 

Ronan: why

Gansey starts typing something about life and living, but he gives up halfway through. He’ll never be done with Ronan, but, at some point, he does have to take a step back. At some point, Gansey has had to accept that he can’t control all the variables of his life. He doesn’t want to control everything; he doesn’t want to control Ronan. 

Gansey: Don’t make me get on a plane I’m currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon

Gansey would, if he had to. If it came down to it, he’d abandon the road-trip of his dreams to drag Ronan out of bed, to take care of him. Gansey still remembers what Ronan was like right after Niall, what he was like in the hospital, what he was like right after Aurora. He can’t force Ronan to do anything, but he could give him company. He could look after him, watch over him. 

He could—

Ronan sends him a picture of his elbow, bent to look like an ass. Gansey’s laughter comes out like a groan. 

It’s dark by the time they find a motel. Gansey’s muscles are sore from hiking and standing and being chained to a tree all day. His eyes are burning with tiredness from the late hour and previous nights of insomnia. His stomach is complaining loudly in its hunger. But Gansey is content. He’s happy. It’s good, to feel like he was a part of something bigger than himself. Something bigger, even, than him and Blue and Henry. And Blue… 

Blue’s energy is contagious. 

She’s still talking once they pack in for the night. She’s rambling about the day’s events, about some of the protesters she met, about the look on the loggers’ faces when she gave them a piece of her mind. Her hair is wild with dislodged hair clips and her smile is wide with joy and her arms are flailing with all her gesticulating. 

Her energy is very attractive. 

Gansey’s trying to ignore that fact as he collapses into one of the room’s beds. He should shower, probably. He should change out of his hiking clothes, probably. But he doesn’t. He stares up at the ceiling. The day runs over in his mind. Not even the phone call with Declan or the discouraging text exchange with Ronan can bring down his mood. Gansey feels weightless. He feels light. 

He’s just very happy, is all. 

“Food?” he asks, still looking straight above him. He can hear Blue and Henry moving around the motel room. The sounds of their presence adds to his happiness, to his comfort. 

“I’m craving pizza,” Blue says. Her voice is a little faint, like she’s starting to lose it with all the talking and yelling she’s done today. “Can we order pizza to a motel room?” 

“Probably,” Gansey tells her, pulling out his phone to find out. 

Half an hour later, they have three pizzas and two dozen napkins and a liter of Coca Cola between them. They eat in bed and it’s messy and uncouth and perfect. It’s so unlike dinners back at the Gansey household: charming, put together, fabricated. This is real life, Gansey thinks. This is his real life. 

They eat until they’re more than full, until the pizzas and the napkins and the drinks are well over halfway gone. They eat and talk until tiredness takes them over. Then, Gansey does, in the end, take a shower and change, but it’s perfunctory and quick. He’s back in bed as soon as he can be, curling up around Blue and burying his face into her skin. 

She whispers, “Your breath is ticklish.” 

He whispers back, “Deal with it.”

Gansey falls asleep quicker than he can ever remember falling asleep before. He slips into a dreamless rest because, since last November, Gansey hasn’t dreamed. If he asked Ronan, he would learn that Matthew and Aurora and other dreamt creatures don’t dream. But Gansey doesn’t need to ask. He knows what has changed and he knows that, really, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t care. He dreams of nothing but darkness, infinity, unending space.

He sleeps. 

Henry’s lips are smaller than Blue’s. Blue’s are full bodied and dual toned, browner on top and pinker on the bottom, where her tongue sometimes darts out to wet them. Henry’s lips are a softer shade of rosy pink, a thin line with a prominent cupid’s bow. Gansey watches his mouth more often than he should. He watches the twists of his expression: frowning when words escape him, smiling when they don’t. He catalogs every form those lips have ever taken. Gansey wants to know what they’ll look like right before they’re kissed. Gansey wants to know what they’ll look like right after they’re kissed—swollen, puffy, slick. 

Gansey knows what it’s like to kiss Blue. He knows how her lips feel against his. He knows how she reacts to each choice he makes. When Gansey kisses her gently, she presses further, turns it firmer. When Gansey attempts to tuck her hair behind her ear, she smiles into his kiss. When Gansey lets his hand drag to her back, she opens her mouth against his lips. Gansey has learned her every preference, her every want, her every habit. Gansey has memorized what it feels like to be kissed by Blue Sargent. 

Henry is a mystery. 

Hours are spent imagining what it’s going to be like to kiss him. It’s an inevitability now, Gansey knows. Like with Blue, Gansey has no doubt that it will happen. He will feel Henry Cheng’s lips against his, at least once. Gansey can only hope that it goes better than his first kiss with Blue. 

Gansey imagines that it will feel different to kiss a boy. Sharper, stronger. Blue is all rounded edges and curved lines, but Henry isn’t. Henry is a jagged jawline, bony shoulders, flat chest, long fingers. He is uncharted territory, he is a path that Gansey has yet to explore. Gansey wants to explore. 

Gansey wants to explore him. 

Gansey imagines that it will feel different to kiss Henry simply because it’s Henry. Kissing Blue for the first time was the start of the world and the end of it all at once. Kissing Blue was a natural disaster, and it was always going to be. Kissing Henry will be different. Kissing Henry won’t kill anyone—hopefully. Gansey imagines it will feel different because Gansey feels different. His feelings for Blue and Henry are parallel lines, but they don’t overlap or intersect. They ride the same wave, but in different oceans. 

Blue makes Gansey quiet. Blue makes Gansey timeless. Blue likes Gansey when he’s a mess, when he’s afraid, when he’s pitiful. Blue doesn’t need or want him to change, but she loves him even as he does. She loves him on accident, she loves him because she can’t not love him. Gansey loves her because she buys yogurt with fruit at the bottom just so she can share it with him. Gansey loves her because she drives his car like an old lady. Gansey loves her like she’s the sun and he’s a cave; her light transforms his darkness, her love transforms his being. 

Henry understands Gansey without words. Henry makes Gansey present. Henry recognizes why Gansey is a mess, why he’s afraid, why he’s pitiful. Henry understands, and he helps. Gansey doesn’t ask him to, but Henry always does. He doesn’t ask for anything in return. He doesn’t need a thing from Gansey, but he shows up. He sticks around. Gansey doesn’t know if Henry loves him, but… 

Gansey loves Henry. 

Gansey loves Henry because he wears the sweater Gansey died in. Gansey loves Henry because he almost joined the crew team for him. Gansey loves Henry because he drives his car like he isn’t afraid, even though he is. Gansey loves Henry because he meets him in his darkness. Gansey loves Henry because he trusts him, implicitly and instinctively and near-immediately. 

Gansey loves Henry. 

Ronan Lynch sends Gansey another picture. This one is of a business card. On the front, there’s a printed image of a woman with a cross painted across her face, like a mask or like blood or like graffiti. The caption reads: find out what this means for me. 

Gansey does his own preliminary research. He sends the photograph to a handful of explorers he’s traversed or discussed ley lines and Glendower with in the past. He shows Blue and Henry. Henry recognizes it at once, says Seondeok has warned him of them. 

Them meaning Boudicca. 

Gansey digs a little deeper in his research. The whole thing is very interesting. Boudicca seems, really, a bit like an all-women mob. Mostly, it’s the history of their namesake that Gansey finds so compelling. The rest is… a bit concerning when the business card is in Ronan’s hands, when Ronan didn’t explain why he wanted Gansey to research this for him. Still, despite his misgivings, when Gansey has more than scratched the surface, when he has enough to, hopefully, satisfy Ronan, he reports back.

Gansey: Reached out to a few peers. Image you sent confirmed logo for Boudicca. All-lady group involved in the protection and organization of women in business. Henry says his mother thinks they’re pretty powerful. 

Gansey: Boudicca is actually a very interesting historical figure in her own right. 

Gansey: She was a warrior queen of the Celts around 60 CE and she fought against the Romans

Blue interrupts his messaging with opinions of her own. 

Gansey: Blue wants you to know Boudicca is

Gansey accidentally hits send too soon as Blue frantically taps his arm to punctuate her point. Gansey says, “Jane.” She stops. Gansey keeps typing. 

Gansey: Sorry sent too soon quote is “Boudicca is the original goth. Ronan Lynch wishes he was that badass.” 

Gansey: Is badass one word or two

He’s still formulating his next message when Ronan’s comes through. 

Ronan: if you have to ask, you aren’t one. thanks old man. i’ll wiki it.

It’s an obvious dismissal, and it makes Gansey pout, just a little. Gansey deletes his half drafted text. He spends a long time after that hoping Ronan will text him again, but knowing that he won’t. Hoping that Ronan is being safe, and knowing that he isn’t.

Blue, noticing his dipping demeanor, says, “Lighten up. Ronan can handle himself.” 

Gansey disagrees, but he lets Blue kiss his cheek, lets her distract him from his worries. He sets Boudicca aside, ridding thoughts of history and mobs from his mind. 

You know what you want. 

Gansey is in the backseat of the Pigeon. Blue is behind the wheel this time, her slow pace making impatience buckle within Gansey like it never has before. He wants to open his mouth to speak, to urge her on, but he fears that, if he does, it will be the Voice’s words that leave his lips. It’s all he can hear, all he can think of. 

His brain is melting, surely. His feet are restless with a need to walk, run, move. 

I know what you want. 

Gansey isn’t just dizzy. He doesn’t just feel an unexplained urgency. He feels empty inside, hollowed out and carved out. He feels like a shell of himself. He feels like something is really, really, really wrong. 

He needs to ask for help, but he can’t remember how. 

I can give you what you want.

There’s something wet around Gansey’s eyes. He doesn’t feel like he’s crying, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he was. He’s tense all over, he’s trembling in little increments, he’s worn down to nothing. Why not cry about it? Why not when the Voice is so loud? 

If you just help me. 

Gansey wipes his eyes. His hands come back black. The substance is viscous and thick, tarry and sticky against his fingers. It reminds Gansey of the dying trees in Cabeswater, the absolute darkness that sweat from their barks as a demon unmade them. It was poisonous and artificial in appearance back then, but, now, with it staining Gansey’s fingers…

It’s real. It’s all natural. It’s him. 

Gansey’s first thought is: I’m being unmade. Gansey’s second thought is: I stopped the demon. Gansey’s third thought is: “Blue. Henry. Help.” 

Blue’s eyes stay firmly on the road, but Henry pivots in his seat, looking back at Gansey to discern his need. Henry makes a soft sound of distress, like a whine in the back of his throat. Henry says, “Gansey.” Then he says, “Blue, pull over.” 

Everything is far away and distant. Henry is reaching into the back, to swipe a thumb under Gansey’s nose and the darkness starting to pool there too, but Gansey can hardly feel his touch. Blue is saying something, but Gansey can hardly register the panic in her voice. All Gansey knows is black, black, black. Endless nothing. Infinity. 

The Pigeon screeches to a stop. Henry and Blue have to work together to pull Gansey out of the car. Gansey doesn’t see the point. He can die on the backseat or the side of the road, it makes no difference. He has no preference. 

Gansey falls to his knees as soon as he’s standing. He’s too weak to support himself. 

Blue and Henry crouch in front him. Blue’s eyes are wet. She says, “Henry, there are tissues in the glove compartment. Get my phone, too.” 

Gansey doesn’t want Henry to go. He doesn’t want Henry to leave his line of sight, but he does it anyway. Gansey emits a little noise of hurt. It’s not physical pain. Gansey thinks part of him should be hurting. If something—Cabeswater?—is dying inside him, if Gansey is dying, shouldn’t it hurt? 

Gansey’s a fool. It didn’t hurt the second time. The second time, it was bliss. It was Blue’s lips against his and that… that could never hurt. Even if it killed, it didn’t cause pain. It was peaceful. 

This isn’t peaceful, but this isn’t pain either.

You know what you want. 

“Blue,” Gansey pleads. Begs. “Say something.” 

“You’re going to be fine,” Blue says. She’s got tears down her face and Gansey hates that. He wants to fix that, but he can’t. His hands are black with ooze, and Gansey doesn’t want to stain her more than he already has. He doesn’t want to ruin her. 

Henry comes back. He hands the phone over to Blue, but he doesn’t hand the tissues over to Gansey. Henry takes the clean up job as his own. Henry’s always calmer with a task of his own, and so he wipes under Gansey’s eyes, under his nose, under his ears. It hardly helps. The black keeps coming. It rests on Gansey’s upper lip. Henry focuses his attention there, at his nose, to try to keep Gansey from having to taste the darkness, decay, death. 

I know what you want. 

“Ronan’s not answering,” Blue says. Gansey hadn’t even heard the phone ring. Blue’s hands are shaking. 

“And that’s a surprise?” Henry asks. His voice is shaking. “Try Adam.” 

Blue tries Adam. Gansey has to strain to pay attention to the dial tone. It makes his head hurt, his eyes buzz. He stops paying attention. He hears only his own thoughts and the Voice. He feels only dripping rivulets and gentle tissue. He sees only Blue and Henry. 

I can give you what you want. 

“Switch,” Henry says. He hands the tissues to Blue and procures his own phone. 

“Who are you calling?” Blue asks. 

Henry doesn’t answer and Blue doesn’t ask again. She smiles weakly at Gansey. It’s like she’s trying to be reassuring, like her lips are trying to say it’s going to be okay but she doesn’t believe it enough to speak. With one hand, she holds the tissue under Gansey’s nose. They’ve given up on his ears and eyes. Gansey’s vision is bleeding into black. With the other hand, she holds Gansey’s. 

Her palm is stained with black. Henry’s hands are similarly demolished. Gansey is unmaking them. 

If you just help me. 

“Hello, Declan. It’s Henry Cheng,” Henry says. Oh. That makes sense. “Yes, yes, long time no speak. Unfortunately, I’m not calling to catch up. Can you tell me why Gansey is bleeding black from his eyes, nose, and ears?” 

Henry cuts right to the chase. He picks up his phone and he calls for Declan and he strings words together like it’s easy for him. That, more than anything, clues Gansey into how scared Henry actually is. Blue’s wearing it on her face, in her tears. Henry is hiding it in his actions. 

“Yes, well, surprise surprise: Lynch did something stupid anyway. What do we do?” 

Gansey can’t hear the other side of the conversation. He’s glad he can’t. Whatever Declan says makes Henry’s composure slip. Fear floods his eyes, grief tugs at the corners of his mouth. He looks miserable. 

Gansey made him this way. 

Help me. 

Gansey tries to communicate with the Voice. He tries to think back: how?

I can save you. 

Henry hangs up the phone. 

Blue says, “Well?” 

Henry says, “Ronan calls it nightwash. It happens when he goes too long without dreaming or when he spends too long away from the Barns. Matthew’s only experienced it once before, when it was really bad for Ronan.” Henry shakes his head. “There’s nothing we can do except wait for Ronan to sort himself out. Declan said Matthew always feels better when he’s outside.” 

Gansey says, voice reedy and thin, “It’s getting hard to breathe.”

He can feel the sickness in his lungs, but his anxiety says it’s hornet stings. His anxiety says his skin is swelling, his throat is closing, his lungs and heart are failing. He’s failing. He’s dying. But it’s not just him. 

Ronan is dying, too. 

Gansey understands it in an unexplainable way. Ronan, like Cabeswater, is tangled in his roots, in his veins. If Ronan dies, Gansey dies. 

They’re both dying. Gansey can’t breathe. 

“Back in the car,” Blue says. Her tone is firm, but she’s still crying. “We stop at the first stretch of woods we find.” Then, “We’ve saved him before. We’ll save him again.” 

Only I can save you now. 

Gansey doesn’t want to live if he’s not living because of them. Gansey doesn’t want to live if Ronan isn’t. Gansey doesn’t want to hear the Voice anymore. 

I know what you want. 

Gansey doesn’t die, which means that Ronan doesn’t either. 

Gansey, Blue, and Henry stay out in a patch of forest until there are stars glimmering and glittering overhead. Until the nightwash stops, until Gansey can breathe, until Blue gets a text from Adam. 

Adam: Ronan is fine. He’s just an idiot. Gansey okay? 

There’s a small back and forth exchange there—Gansey’s burning with missing him, with missing Ronan, with wanting to see that they’re both okay—and Henry, being a decent person, messages Declan. If Gansey is okay, then Ronan is okay. Declan should want to know that, so Henry lets him know. And then… 

And then, it’s over. They find a motel. 

It finally happens. There’s only one room left for the night and there’s only one bed. No one complains, no one cares. They’re too exhausted to. If Gansey’s honest with himself—and post-near death is always the time for honesty—then it sounds a lot like a blessing. It sounds like Gansey is going to get to curl in close to Blue and Henry tonight. And, after the day he’s had, he can’t think of anything better. 

When they get to the room—an amalgamation of every room they’ve stayed in thus far, just one mattress short—Gansey says, “I’m going to take a shower.” 

They cleaned him up as best they could for check in, but he feels disgusting. His hands are still tinted gray, his clothes are rough from wear and tear. He hasn’t seen his face yet, but he’s sure he’s pale and terrible looking. Like he just said hello to his good friend death. 

“Don’t drown,” Henry says. He tries for his usual smile, but it falls flat. 

Blue opens her mouth to say something. She closes it. She shakes her head. Gansey hesitates a moment longer, waiting and watching her. She doesn’t move a muscle. Her brown eyes are dull with exhaustion. Gansey hates himself for forcing her through this with him. 

The shower’s water pressure is a little too harsh, but it’s good. Gansey turns the dial firmly to the left, firmly in the direction of hot. He lets the water scald his skin, like he’s burning off the uppermost layer. He wishes it was that easy. He wishes he could rid himself of the grime of this day with something as simple as motel room soap.

It doesn’t make sense. Nightwash. Ronan’s ailment plaguing Gansey too. It doesn’t make sense. Yes, Cabeswater is Ronan’s dream. Yes, Gansey is now held up by Cabeswater’s memory. Yes, Ronan and Gansey are more intertwined than they’ve ever been, but… 

If Ronan dies, Gansey should sleep. Gansey shouldn’t die, too. But today… today, that would’ve been death. Gansey is certain Declan confirmed as much over the phone. Gansey is certain that if the nightwash kills Ronan, then it kills Gansey too. 

But is it just the nightwash? Or have the rules changed? 

If Ronan crashes the BMW tomorrow, will Gansey sleep forever? Or will he die with him? And which is worse? And are they really that different? 

Cabeswater isn’t just a dream, Gansey knows. Ronan had explained it to him once. He had told Gansey that Cabeswater wasn’t his in the same way Matthew was his. Long before Ronan was born, Cabeswater existed. Ronan just dreamt of it. He didn’t create it, he just brought it here. Cabeswater isn’t just a dream. Gansey isn’t just a dream. 

The truth: Gansey has no answers. He has half a hundred questions, and there will be no answers. There is no precedent. Gansey will be the precedent, he supposes. 

The water starts to cool without Gansey’s consent. Gansey shuts the shower off, gives up. He finally looks in the mirror. The black ooze is gone from his skin, but there are dark circles under his eyes and his face looks gaunt, haunted, hollow. Gansey sighs and looks away. He dresses and leaves the bathroom in a cloud of steam. 

Neither Blue nor Henry is in bed yet, but Gansey climbs to its center anyway. Soon enough, they clean themselves up and join him. Soon enough, Blue and Henry bracket him. The bed is too small for niceties and the day too horrible for holding back. Instead, they both hold him. 

Blue cups Gansey’s face in her hand, petting him with her thumb, and Henry draws circles down his back. Gansey takes hours to fall asleep, but they stay awake with him the entire time. They just keep holding him until, eventually, sleep joins them in taking Gansey into its embrace. 

Gansey, impossibly, dreams of the Voice. 

In the morning, Gansey’s head is clear. In the morning, the Voice is quiet. In the morning, all Gansey hears is the shower running. 

Blue is sitting up in bed, next to Gansey and touching him still. Gansey’s sure she hasn’t stopped since the moment she joined him here. He doesn’t know if it’s for his own comfort or for hers—probably both—but he appreciates it. Her hand is in his hair, stroking through the strands and scratching at his scalp. Gansey could fall back asleep. But. 

Yesterday’s close call with death has left Gansey, suddenly, unafraid. It should be the opposite. His anxiety should be thriving, his heart should be pounding, his palms should be sweating. He should be terrified of the revelation that, at least to some degree, his life is dependent on Ronan Lynch’s survival. He should be terrified of the idea that his third life isn’t guaranteed to be any longer than his first or his second. Somehow, though, he’s comforted by the thought. 

If it could all end tomorrow, then he needs to make the most of right now. 

Gansey is reminded of the words of the psychic, of Adam. Gansey is reminded of: You know what you want. Do not be so afraid that you do not live. Gansey wants to be afraid. Gansey wants to be happy. Gansey wants to share his bed with Blue and with Henry. He wants both. He wants, he wants, he wants. 

Loath as he is to dislodge Blue’s hand and her ministrations, Gansey moves to sit up. He kneels on the bed beside her, looking at her. Blue blinks at him, smiles a little. “How are you feeling?” she asks. 

“I’m okay,” Gansey says. Because he is. He feels like yesterday never happened. He feels invigorated. He says, “Jane?” 

“Yeah?” 

Gansey lets their eyes lock. Brown and hazel. He just says, “Henry.” 

He intends to say more, but, really, that’s all there is. There’s just Henry and instant recognition in Blue’s eyes—they crinkle at the corners, like they do when she’s smiling. The shower pounds against the thin walls of the motel room. The sound is louder than Blue’s voice when she whispers, “I know.” 

Language is hardly necessary in that moment. Gansey already knew Blue’s feelings for Henry mirrored his, but this. This and, now, Gansey knows that she wants as much as he does. This and Gansey knows that she wants to act as much as he does. 

“If you never saw the stars,” Blue tells him, “candles were enough.” 

She confesses. She says, without saying it, that she loves Gansey. That he is enough, he will always be enough. One true love is more than plenty, is spoiled, is privileged beyond doubt. And yet… there’s more than just one. She says, without saying it, that she loves Henry too. 

If Gansey never met Henry, he wouldn’t have wanted a day in his life. Not with Blue at his side. And that’s what Blue is telling him now: she doesn’t need more than him, but she wants Henry. 

“Three is better,” Gansey tells her, “more stable.”

He confesses. He says, without saying it, that Henry makes them glow. Henry makes them steady. What Gansey and Blue have transcends reality, exceeds the boundaries of life. What Gansey and Blue have is magical and perfect in its own right, but what they could have with Henry… 

That could be magical and perfect too. Henry meets them in the middle, Henry balances them, Henry makes them better—as individuals and as a unit. 

Blue nods. She understands. She knows. 

“When?” Gansey asks. His heart is beating steady in his chest. There’s no urgency because Blue is going to tell him when. There’s no urgency because it’s inevitable, it’s always been inevitable. 

“We’ll know,” says Blue. 

The shower cuts off. Gansey nods. He understands. They’ll know. 

Gansey hasn’t spoken to Ronan since he asked about the Boudicca business card, since before the day Gansey almost died. It’s his birthday now, and Gansey has been hesitating in texting him. Gansey has been holding back. Probably he should’ve called Ronan after it happened, again and again until Ronan either turned his phone off or answered. Probably he shouldn’t have left it this long—two days is a lifetime. Probably. 

But he didn’t. So. 

Gansey: Happy Birthday, Ronan. 

Ronan: thanks man, but ur late. sargento beat you to it.

Gansey: Okay never mind I hope your birthday is abysmal. 

Ronan: sure thing dickie boy

Gansey: Call me that again and I’ll block your number. 

Ronan: your move dickie boy

Gansey doesn’t block him, but he doesn’t grace him with a response either. He pockets his phone and hopes, sincerely, that Ronan has a decent birthday. He deserves it.

November doesn’t bleed. The summer months run and blend together—a blur of sunny states and tourist traps and green trees. The summer months are one continuous stretch, stretch, stretch of time. November isn’t like that. November is brittle and rigid and uncertain. Every day stands in stark contrast against the one that came before. Every day brings them colder and closer. Colder and closer to a year since demons and death and resurrections. And, with the anniversary fast approaching, with the psychic’s words and the Voice lingering in Gansey’s mind, everything feels uncertain. Stagnant. Dormant. Fragile. 

November doesn’t bleed. It doesn’t ebb and flow. It just shatters. It cracks like ice under pressure, under too much weight. Gansey is trying to keep his steps light. Gansey is trying to move with caution. Gansey is trying not to fracture November in his grip. 

As Ronan’s birthday is abandoned and the end of the year sprawls out ahead as their newest month comes firmly into fruition, it’s like a page being turned. The new month on the calendar is a symbol of all that is changing. The warmth and the ease of their road-trip is officially being left behind, replaced by something harder with its holding back and impatient with waiting till they know. They’ve come to a precipice now, and, Gansey thinks, it’s too late to go back. Gansey and Blue have brought it out into the open, and now they’re too close to the edge, to the tipping point. All there’s left to do is carry on. All they can do is keep moving forward, all they can do is step off the edge and into whatever fate has in store for them. 

Gansey just hopes they survive the fall. 

Crater Lake is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a volcanic crater that, in time, has become a lake. It’s famous for its shocking depth and deep blue water. It’s their final stop in Oregon before they head east, through the northern half of their country and towards Cambridge where Adam waits to greet them—like, three months from now. 

They’re a few weeks early for snow, but, still, it’s only a handful of degrees above freezing. The weather is, in that case, quite obviously not ideal, but Gansey doesn’t really care. The cold bites at his bare hands and his cheeks, but he’s warm with his awe and with his company of Blue and Henry. Blue’s wearing a giant coat that looks like it once belonged to someone twice her size. It’s endearing. Henry is wearing a more appropriately sized but still large coat that’s zipped up to his chin. He’s got gloves and a hat on too, but, still, his face is red with the effect of the elements. Gansey’s tempted to steal his camera. 

The three of them stand at the edge of the crater. There’s a landform near its center, surrounded by water and protruding up and up. It’s called Wizard’s Island. The name pleases something in Gansey. He wonders if its title has a legend behind it, or if, perhaps, it’s named after the island’s shape. Like a wizard’s hat over the water. The water that is, as expected, very deep and very blue. Gansey can’t see the bottom, just his own reflection, just Blue and Henry’s. Just the three of them on the brink of something so massive it’s impossible to see the otherside, it’s impossible to know for sure if it will ever end. Gansey hopes it doesn’t. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Henry says. His voice is open with his wonder and with his reverence. It’s impossible to ignore how impressed he sounds, how affected. Gansey likes that. He likes that Henry sees this terrifying lake as something beautiful. Because that’s how Gansey sees it, too. And Blue is the same, Gansey knows. 

“I have,” Blue says, a little smug. Gansey wants to turn to look at her, but it seems wrong to pull his eyes from the lake. He keeps admiring it and simply listens to her speak instead. She says, “It reminds me of the mirror lake. From the cave of ravens.” Gansey had never seen that lake. He’d been trapped on the other side of the stone with Adam and Gwenllian—two out of three of them desperately scared for Ronan and Adam, for the pieces of them that had gone off into danger on their own. “It showed anyone who looked into its surface a nightmare. The water looked so deep you couldn’t see the bottom.” 

“How did you get across?” Gansey asks. He already knows, of course. Ronan told them what happened when he came back to get them, to get them out of the cave before the whole thing collapsed. But he’s never heard it from Blue. He wants to hear it from her, and he wants Henry to hear it too. 

“I believed I could,” Blue says. Gansey can hear her coat rustling. He still doesn’t look at her. “Turns out, the water wasn’t deep at all. There was nothing to be afraid of after all.” 

Henry makes a soft sound, a hum of intrigue or understanding or content. Gansey can’t tell, but he’s not worried. Henry says, “That’s a nice story, Blue.” 

“It is,” Gansey agrees. The real truth of Blue crossing the lake is a simple one: the lake was a mirror, but Blue was a stronger one. The lake gave out, Blue continued on. And yet, Blue isn’t lying when she says it was belief that carried her across. The lake never would have killed or hurt her, but, if she hadn’t had faith in herself and her safety, then she never would have tried. She never would’ve gotten anywhere.

“Should we go back?” Blue asks. “It’s cold as all get out.” 

Gansey does turn to look at her then. She’s shivering a little, even as bundled up as she is. Gansey says, “Yeah. We can go back.” 

Back at the Pigeon, Henry unzips his jacket. He’s wearing Gansey’s favorite yellow sweater underneath—somehow, Gansey had missed that detail this morning. His cheeks are flushed with the weather, his nose is pink at the tip. His shoulders are locked tight with tension. His hair is fluffy and soft-looking when he removes his hat, when he shoves it in the pocket of his unzipped coat. 

He’s beautiful. 

Henry’s eyes are reflecting the late autumn sun, shining at Gansey, as he asks, “Can I drive?” 

Gansey doesn’t move to get the keys from his pocket. He’s transfixed. He’s enchanted. He’s counting Henry’s eyelashes as they rest against his skin. Gansey wants to reach out and touch him. 

Blue had said: we’ll know. Gansey’s not sure if this is the moment Blue was thinking about. Gansey’s not sure if the need curling in his gut is the knowing she was referring to, but Gansey knows that he needs. Gansey needs to cross that wintry lake, needs to close the gap between them. He needs, he needs, he needs. 

“Henry,” Gansey says. It’s almost a question, but barely. It’s a breath of air more than anything else. Gansey’s surprised he can’t see it freezing between them, crystallizing at once. 

“Yeah?” Henry asks. His voice sounds the same as it always does. Either he hasn’t caught on to what Gansey’s about to do, or he has and he’s back to hiding his awe. He was so transparent on the lakeside. Gansey wants that back, wants to draw that out of Henry. 

“May I kiss you?” Gansey asks. He takes the smallest of steps towards Henry, but he doesn’t box him in yet, doesn’t touch him yet. He asks and he waits. He doesn’t demand, he doesn’t take. 

Henry looks over Gansey’s shoulder where Gansey knows Blue is standing. Gansey can feel her presence, can feel her eyes on him. Gansey doesn’t look because the sight of her will break him right now. Henry asks Blue, “Can he?” 

Blue says, “Yes.” 

Henry blinks. Those lashes of his flutter. He looks at Gansey. They’re almost the same height, but Henry has an inch on him. Gansey has to look up, just slightly. That juxtaposition, that difference in looking at Blue and looking at Henry, burns like heat in Gansey’s core. Henry still hasn’t said yes. 

“Henry,” Gansey says again. He repeats, “May I?” 

“Please,” says Henry. “Kiss me. Really kiss me.” 

Gansey kisses him. He closes the last bit of space between them, he cups Henry’s frozen face in his hands. He flicks his eyes to Henry’s lips. He watches how they part, anticipatory, how they wait to be kissed. Gansey’s eyes close. He leans in, their noses bump, he tilts his head. He kisses Henry Cheng. 

Once upon a time, Gansey moved to Henrietta to be closer to the ley line. Gansey hadn’t bought Monmouth yet, so he was staying at Aglionby. He had a roommate, Gansey remembers, but he can’t remember who it was. They only spent a couple nights living together. That first night, Gansey’s first night in Henrietta, he couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t supposed to, but he snuck out of the dorm and took the Pig for a drive. He drove up into the mountains. He looked out at the entire town. He listened to crickets chirping until the cardinals started chirping instead. As the sun rose over Henrietta, Gansey thought: home. 

This kiss is that night. This kiss is one thought, one word: home. 

Gansey’s hands fall from Henry’s face, they slide under his jacket and grip at his waist, at the familiar soft fabric of Gansey’s yellow sweater. Henry kisses like he’s confessing. Henry kisses like it’s a secret. Henry kisses like there’s a language to it and he’s fluent. Henry kisses deep and endless. 

Gansey pushes forward a little. Henry’s back hits the Pigeon. Gansey kisses him up against the perfect, dreamt, engineless Camaro. 

Gansey pulls away seconds, minutes, hours later. Henry’s face is redder than before. He stammers, mouth full of vowels. The awe is plain on his face. He’s affected. Beside them—she must have moved closer, at some point—Blue laughs, like she can’t keep the joy in. Gansey smiles, too. 

“My turn,” Blue says, but she doesn’t move Gansey out of her way. She takes Henry’s chin in her hand and turns him to face her. She kisses him just like that, with Gansey’s hands still on Henry’s waist and Henry’s hands still on Gansey’s shoulders, his arms. 

Once upon a time, Gansey stood at the edge of Crater Lake, deep and endless. Gansey could have stood on its shore forever, just admiring its existence. The cold didn’t matter when there were things of such beauty in the world.

This kiss is that lake. Gansey never wants to look away. 

One of Henry’s hands leaves Gansey. He tucks a strand of hair behind Blue’s ear. It falls away again at once. Gansey mirrors the movement, pulls one hand from Henry’s waist to trace his fingers around the shape of his cold ear, to hook a strand of hair there. It stays. Gansey sighs. Satisfied. 

Henry is the one to pull away this time. He blinks, slow and steady. He’s stunning. 

“One more for the road,” Blue says. And then she kisses Gansey like she’s never kissed him before. She kisses him tentative and soft and slow, like she’s learning him all over again. Gansey imagines that he can taste Henry on her lips. 

Once upon a time, Gansey kissed Henry and Henry kissed Blue and Blue kissed Gansey. When all the kisses were done, they got in the car. Gansey let Henry drive, he let Blue sit in the front seat. Gansey sat in the backseat, but it wasn’t a sacrifice. He had the perfect view to watch them both, and he did. And he did. And he did.

Chapter Text

The first time Gansey ever felt like what he and Blue had was real—or could be real—was at Henry Cheng’s toga party. Stripped from their clothes—Blue’s eccentricity and Gansey’s casual wealth—they were draped in sheets instead, laid bare to each other and laid bare to the Vancouver crowd around them. No one in Litchfield House cared that Blue and Gansey were more than just friends, that they were him and her, her and him. In Litchfield House, it didn’t matter, and that’s exactly why it did. That night lives on in infamy because, there, time was real and Gansey wanted to travel it forward. Because, there, Gansey could hold Blue’s hand in his lap, not between the driver’s seat and the car door. 

The first time Gansey ever felt like Henry could be something more to them was at Henry Cheng’s toga party. At the time, Gansey never would have been able to predict this. (Henry behind the wheel, Blue in the front seat, Gansey in the backseat. All of their lips swollen from kisses swapped and shared.) But there was something there that night. In the way Blue and Henry clicked together at once—both so different from the rest of the world, both wanting it that way. In the way that Henry’s party made Gansey feel like a participant in his own life. In the way that plans were made and shared and promised between them. The hints of the future were all there, written between the lines in font too small for any of them to read. It was there, but none of them noticed. They felt it, but they didn’t have words for it beyond something more. 

The first time Gansey ever felt truly known and understood—at least, in a time post his ten year old self’s death—was at Henry Cheng’s toga party. Henry spoke soft and drunk and a little slurred about traveling. He asked Blue to go to Venezuela with him, and Blue whispered back that she would, she would, she would. They were both so full of a longing that Gansey had never seen outside of his own reflection. Gansey hungered to be a part of it, to be one of them—one of the living, one of the travelers of the future. Gansey invited himself along and Blue and Henry accepted him gladly. They said they were going to go to Venezuela. 

They didn’t go to Venezuela. 

They still could, some day. Gansey thinks they’ll get there eventually. They’ll travel every continent, every country, every inch of the globe. They’ll know things about the earth and about each other that the rest of the population could never even hope to know, could never even dream of. They’ll go to Wales—when it’s not so fresh, when Gansey is less scared of the past, when Glendower hurts a little less. They’ll go to Poland and Zimbabwe. They’ll go to South Korea and to Ireland and to Canada. They’ll go to Rome and find a proper toga party. They’ll even go to Venezuela some day. They have time. Gansey really believes that now. Gansey knows that. 

For now, though, they don’t go to Venezuela. But they go to Oregon. And nine other states before that and at least nine more to go as they travel from west to east towards Cambridge. They don’t go to Venezuela, but Gansey watches Henry lean over the Pigeon’s console to kiss Blue again, and, well. 

Venezuela’s got nothing on this moment. 

There are two beds in tonight’s motel room, but only one is used. The three of them share one bed and share tired kisses. Gansey gives up the middle spot to Henry, and Gansey and Blue curl around him, like he’s still cold, like they need to warm him up. They don’t. The heat is on in the motel room, they’re under the covers, the body heat is excessive between the three of them. Still, they stay close like they’ll perish if they pull away. Gansey thinks, at least, that’s probably a little true. 

Henry’s got a dark freckle under his eye. Gansey kisses him there. It makes Henry squeeze his eyes shut, fast and instinctive and cute. Gansey laughs a little into his skin, kisses the mark again. 

“Is this what insomnia feels like?” Henry asks, quiet. There’s no reason to speak louder than a whisper when they’re all tucked in close. Blue is playing with Henry’s fingers, threading hers through his and then out again, through his and then apart again. On the third time, Henry closes his hand around hers, halting the movement, trapping her. Blue doesn’t try to pull away again. 

“Like what?” Gansey asks. He puts his hand on Henry’s chest. He can feel Henry’s heartbeat through the fabric of his shirt—it’s too warm now for the yellow sweater, but Gansey misses it anyway. Gansey starts to tap at Henry’s pec, matching the rhythm of his pulse. Probably it’s a bit annoying. Henry doesn’t try to stop him. 

“Like I can’t imagine ever sleeping again,” Henry says. There’s a weight to the words. He’s confessing in his own way that he never wants this to end, that he wants this to be something more than one day and a handful of kisses. Gansey wants that too, but he doesn’t say it yet. The time will come for definitions and the future, but, right now, Gansey wants to stay in right now. Gansey wants to stay right here, reaching across Henry to touch Blue’s face, her neck. 

“Yes,” Gansey says. When Gansey can’t sleep, he catastrophizes. It will be like this forever. Usually, it’s a negative thought. Right now, it’s a positive one. It will be like this forever. Shared beds and shared kisses. Blue and Henry, Henry and Blue. Gansey and Blue and Henry. 

“Mm,” Henry says in response. Not so much a word or a sound as it is a feeling. Relief, almost. Release, definitely. Gansey kisses his jaw. Henry turns into the touch, turns to face Gansey, turns to kiss him proper. Gansey kisses back. He mimics that little hum against Henry’s lips, not so much a decision as it is an instinct, a call and response. 

The kiss isn’t anything like insomnia, Gansey decides. Insomnia drains, insomnia takes, insomnia devours. This kiss fills, this kiss takes, this kiss… it does devour a little bit. This kiss makes Gansey feel alive in a way that lack of sleep never could. This kiss makes Gansey feel awake, awake, awake. Gansey is here. Here as Henry kisses him, here as Gansey kisses back. Gansey doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Gansey can’t imagine being anywhere else. 

Henry pulls back just enough to push Gansey’s glasses up, up, up. Up to his forehead, up to his hair to rest. Then, Henry presses in again. Then, Henry’s lips are against Gansey’s again. It’s different than the kiss at the car. Against the Pigeon, Henry’s lips were chilled, but, now, they’re warm from so much touch, touch, touch. Against the Pigeon, they were desperate with so much want, want, want. This kiss is softer, gentler. Still, Gansey is hungry. Gansey doesn’t want to stop. Gansey doesn’t have to stop. Henry is on his back, so Gansey rolls over a little more, a little closer. To hover over him better, to kiss him better. 

Gansey kisses Henry like it’s oxygen. Gansey kisses Henry like the licking flame of a candle wick. Gansey kisses Henry like a sunset. 

Gansey’s hand slides, drags, pours up from Henry’s chest to tangle in his hair. He finds that Blue’s hand is already there. 

Gansey’s hand replaces Blue’s and Blue’s lips replace his. Gansey sinks into the bed again, arm caught between them and head resting on Henry’s shoulder. He’s so close to where they’re connected, to their mouths. Gansey can hear the slick sounds of kissing more than he can hear the heater running or his own breath. It should be terrible, but it isn’t. Gansey should want to move away, but he doesn’t. He wants to get closer. He wants to run his thumb over their lips, over the places where they meet as two unite to become one. Gansey settles for carding his hand through Henry’s hair. 

Blue kisses Henry like it’s water. Blue kisses Henry like the trees of a branch tickling in the clouds—reaching, always reaching. Blue kisses Henry like a sunrise. 

The love Gansey feels is insurmountable. 

The next day finds them driving across the border between Oregon and Idaho, making a start on their eastern migration. Gansey’s back behind the wheel. He’s a bit annoyed that, despite not having an engine, he still needs to change gears in the Pigeon. His hand is stuck on the wheel and the gearstick when his fingers should be laced with Henry’s. It’s a tragedy, really. 

Blue leans forward, between the two front seats and against the center console. She says, “Henry?” 

Henry looks over his shoulder at her. (They’d be close enough to kiss like this. Gansey hopes they don’t. He’ll crash the car if they do. He hopes they do.) Henry doesn’t say anything, but his look in her direction is acknowledgment enough, his silence typical as anything. 

“Can I ask you a question?” Blue asks. “About, um, us. This.” 

Gansey wishes he could look at Henry properly. So much of Henry’s communication is done in measured looks and filtering expressions. Gansey can only see him peripherally now, and it’s not enough. It makes Gansey nervous with what’s to come, with what Blue is broaching. 

“Sure,” Henry says, but he turns away from Blue, looks through the front windshield instead. 

Blue takes the hint and backs off, leans back in her seat so she’s not pressing into Henry’s. She gives him room, but she takes his acceptance at face value. She doesn’t back down from the conversation. She asks, “Do you remember that time you tried to pick me up from Mountain View High?” 

“And we staged a fight to protect your reputation? Sure,” Henry says. He’s still looking straight ahead. Gansey knows, without any proof, that he’s nowhere near as calm as he appears. He’s waiting for Blue to pull the plug on them. This. Gansey doesn’t know how to tell him that’s not going to happen. Gansey doesn’t know how to offer reassurance when he wasn’t privy to this particular instance Blue is referencing, not when he doesn’t know where she’s going with this.

Again, Gansey wants to hold Henry’s hand. Again, Gansey can’t. 

“And do you remember how I thought you were hitting on me? And I told you not to ‘cause I was with Gansey?” Blue prompts. Gansey’s a little shocked by this revelation. He hides it—terribly—by letting the Pigeon speed up an extra five miles per hour. 

“Oh,” Henry says. Then, “Oh.” And, “You want to know what I meant when I said I was Henrysexual.” 

“Yes,” Blue says. She sounds glad that he’s caught on. “I didn’t know what you meant then, but it didn’t really matter much then. It matters now. A lot. To me.” 

Henry turns to look at her again. Some silent communication passes between the two of them. Gansey isn’t a part of it, but he’s not jealous or bothered. He’s just listening and waiting. Henry turns frontward again. 

“At the time, I thought I was aromantic or asexual or both,” Henry says. His words are slow and a bit stilted, like he’s measuring them out, like he’s figuring them out as he goes. Gansey gets the feeling he’s never talked about this before, not in any more depth than the made up word Henrysexual. “You guys know how I am. I’ve always experienced life a little differently than most, and that was part of it. I thought I didn’t have those sorts of feelings or attractions. Until you, Blue. Until you, Gansey.” 

“Okay,” Blue says, easy as anything. “So you wouldn’t describe yourself as Henrysexual anymore?” 

Henry laughs a little. “No, I suppose not.” Gansey, out of the corner of his eye, sees him run a hand through his hair. Gansey wants to take on the task for him. “I don’t like words and I don’t really like labels. But I know I like both of you. In a way that isn’t… entirely friendly.” 

“That’s good,” Blue says. “I definitely still like you as a friend. But I like you more than that too. And so does Gansey. And we…” Blue leans forward between the two seats again, like she can’t say this when there’s distance between them. Like she needs to really see him to finish her sentence. “We wanna date you.” 

Probably this is the part where Gansey should join the conversation. He doesn’t. Henry already knows that Blue can speak for him, that she knows him well enough for it. Gansey doesn’t need to speak up, but he needs to leave room for Henry to. 

“I, uh,” Henry starts, “I really want that. Can we have that?” 

“Yes,” Blue says. She stretches her arm out enough to take Henry’s hand in hers. 

“Cool,” says Henry. 

Idaho has a lake called Redfish Lake. It’s not quite as impressive as Crater Lake, but its name endears Gansey to the idea of stopping, and so, they stop. The name reminds Gansey of the first time they entered Cabeswater. When the magic surrounding the forest was new and exciting and not, as of yet, discovered. There’s a lot of that going around now, Gansey thinks. In all that Blue and Gansey know Henry well, there’s an uncharted magic to learning him as their boyfriend. 

Boyfriend. 

Gansey’s known for a long time that attraction was not a gendered ordeal for him. And yet, he never thought he would actually date a boy. (Let alone date two people, but, really, it makes sense, looking back at his adolescence.) He figured, if he lived long enough, he would settle down with a nice girl who met his parents’ standards and who he loved normally, regularly, easily. 

Well, Gansey’s parents do like Blue and Henry. But he’s not sure they’ll like—or, at least, understand—his love for both of them. 

Loving Blue and Henry is, of course, easy in its own right. In that it is the most natural and inevitable experience of his life. It feels more like fate than anything he’s ever experienced—even considering deaths and Cabeswater and Glendower. It’s easy in that he can’t imagine not loving them, in that he never wants to stop. But it’s not the easy he was anticipating: lackluster, dull, just enough. Loving Blue and Henry is all consuming, overwhelming, deeper than any lake or ocean or cavern. 

Boyfriend and girlfriend and boyfriend. 

Gansey has taken Henry’s camera for today. He didn’t ask and they didn’t discuss it, he just stole the strap from around his neck between one kiss and the next. Henry hadn’t protested, and now Gansey is making the most of the opportunity. He takes (at least) three pictures that he knows he’ll be printing later. 

One: Blue on her toes so she can wrap her arm around Henry’s shoulders. Two: Henry kissing Blue’s hair. Three: Blue kissing Henry’s lips. 

There’s a story told in these snapshots, a development from friends to more than friends to boyfriend and girlfriend (and boyfriend). Gansey feels fond and sentimental and the moment hasn’t even passed yet, the story hasn’t even finished. It plays out in front of him. Their lips part and Blue kicks her hiking boot through the water, enough to splash at Henry’s ankles. Henry squeaks in protest and shoves half-heartedly at Blue’s arm. Blue loses her balance—on one foot, and all—and Henry catches her around the waist. 

They kiss again. 

Gansey takes that picture too. 

Gansey is already planning today’s journal entry in his mind. He can already imagine the splay of these photographs taking up most of the page. Gansey doesn’t need words when he has these frozen memories to say it all for him. 

Adam, as far as Gansey knows, doesn’t hold a grudge against Gansey and Blue for keeping their relationship secret for as long as they did. And yet, Gansey has a lingering guilt. Gansey hates lying, but he trades in secrets. He condemns dishonesty, but he praises lies of omission. Gansey’s morals and his actions are a twisting web that doesn’t always align, that often folds back on itself, that reflects the darker moments of Glendower’s history. Gansey isn’t a perfect person, but he is trying to improve. He is trying to learn from past mistakes. 

He calls Adam in Idaho. Part of Gansey wants to stay by Blue and Henry for this, but most of him wants privacy. So, he wraps his coat around himself and leaves the motel and walks around the parking lot while the dial tone repeats itself again and again. Gansey doesn’t know what he’s going to do if Adam doesn’t pick up. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he can leave in a voicemail, but he also doesn’t want to leave it unsaid any longer than he has to. 

Fortunately, Gansey is saved from that choice when Adam picks up with a simple, “Hey, Gansey.” 

His accent is, impossibly, fainter than it was the last time they spoke. 

“Hi,” Gansey answers, lackluster in the lack of words. He scuffs his foot against the stone of the parking lot. He stops walking for a moment, then gets restless and starts up again. 

“This isn’t just a catch up call, is it?” Adam asks, ever perceptive. “Are you okay? It’s not the nightwash again, right? Because I’ll kill Ronan myself if he gets you killed.” 

Gansey laughs a little, but it’s void of humor. It’s dry, shallow. Gansey doesn’t like the thought of Adam and Ronan hurting each other. He’s thinking about Adam’s hands around Ronan’s throat—it wasn’t him, but it was his body. It wasn’t real, but the threat was. It sticks with Gansey, sticks in his throat. He swallows. He swallows again. He says, “I think Ronan would already be dead in that scenario, but no. It’s not the nightwash. I’m fine.” 

“Good,” Adam says. “So, why are you calling?” 

Here’s his opening.

Gansey’s more nervous than he should be. Adam already kind of knows, Gansey reminds himself. This isn’t coming at him cold, no warning. Adam will react right, even though Gansey doesn’t know what the right reaction is.

“I wanted to tell you that,” Gansey hesitates—for one more second where this secret is only theirs—and then, “Blue and I are dating Henry. We’re… All three of us are dating each other.” 

“Alright,” Adam says. There’s a little bit of Henrietta in that second vowel, in the length of it but not the twang—the twang is missing and Gansey misses it badly. “I already told you: you don’t need my approval. But thank you for telling me.” 

Gansey doesn’t know how to respond to that. You’re welcome seems like a ridiculous answer. But there’s nothing else, his brain is blank and his mouth is empty. 

“Are you happy?” Adam asks. He strings the words together slowly. He almost sounds uncomfortable, and it’s helpful to realize that Gansey isn’t the only one striking new ground here. He isn’t the only one treading water, treading carefully. 

“Yeah,” Gansey says. “Yeah, I am.” 

“Okay,” Adam says. “Then, I’ll try to get over the fact that it’s Cheng.” 

He’s joking, but it doesn’t quite land. It’s not Adam, though, that Gansey is worried about. Gansey knows that Adam will get over it. He’s probably already over it. He’s probably happy for Gansey and Blue—and, maybe, even Henry too. 

“Do you, um,” Gansey starts. He stops. He starts again, “Do you think Ronan’s going to mind?” 

Gansey wants to say more. He wants to say: because you know how he is with Henry. He wants to say: you know how he is with religion. But Gansey doesn’t actually want to say either of those things. He can’t stomach the thought of Ronan not being okay with this. Because, sure, he doesn’t need Adam or Ronan or anyone’s approval. Because, sure, their disapproval wouldn’t stop Gansey from continuing to pursue this. But… 

But it would hurt. A lot. 

“I dunno,” Adam admits. All of the Harvard composure has dropped from his voice as uncertainty finds him. “I— I think he’ll probably be an asshole about it, but he’ll get over himself in time.”

Gansey doesn’t like that answer. He presses, a little, because it’s Adam and he can’t help himself. “How much time do you think?” 

“Not much,” Adam says. It’s just vague enough that Gansey can’t tell if he’s lying for Gansey’s benefit, or if he really believes it. Gansey chooses to assume the latter. 

“Okay,” Gansey says. Then, “I’m going to call him now.” 

But Gansey doesn’t hang up, and Adam doesn’t either. They stay on the phone a while longer, not really talking, just breathing in each other’s ears. Gansey no doubt in Adam’s right and Adam in Gansey’s left. Five, ten minutes pass that way. A long time for nothing but silence, but a short time for two friends who miss each other like nothing else, like life itself. 

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Gansey says, eventually. 

“Talk soon,” Adam echoes. 

Gansey hangs up. He doesn’t give himself time to think or hesitate. He scrolls to Ronan’s number and dials. It rings and rings and rings. 

It goes to voicemail. Gansey doesn’t leave one. 

Snow falls from the heavens in tiny rivulets of white, tiny drops of magic. They’re driving into the storm, into the gray clouds and the snow already sticking to the ground. Blue, having grown up in the Henrietta mountains, is very used to snow and very fond of it. Gansey learns this quickly, when she starts frantically tapping on the back of his seat, saying, “Pull over! Pull over!” 

They, of course, pull over. 

It’s freezing, but Blue is kicking around in the snow and Henry is snapping photographs and Gansey has no complaints. His cheeks are numb against the wind and his hair and shoulders are going damp with snowfall, but it doesn’t panic him. He hardly notices, too wrapped up in this moment and these people and this beautiful day. 

They have nowhere to be today and no responsibilities. There’s nothing to do but hang off each other’s every word and every company. Nothing to do but muck around in the snow until they’re risking frostbite or hypothermia.

Gansey, in all of this, thinks of Ronan. Perhaps it’s the chill that reminds him. Monmouth Manufacturing had terrible heating when they first moved in, and they spent a good few months shivering. Perhaps it’s the blue of the sky, peeking between the clouds, like an ice frozen lake—like Ronan’s eyes. Perhaps it’s just the phone call that wasn’t answered. Perhaps it’s just the separation Gansey has felt like a physical wound since the moment they set off from Henrietta. 

Adam is right, Gansey knows. Ronan might give them shit—because he gives everyone shit for everything—but this isn’t friendship ending stuff. If he minds, he won’t mind for long. If it bothers him, he won’t bother for long. It will be fine. And yet.

And yet. 

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Henry says, ducking from a snowball launched by Blue as he approaches Gansey. He wraps gloved hands around Gansey’s wrist, tugs a little—gentle, so gentle. Gansey’s thumb is removed from his bottom lip. He hadn’t even noticed it was there. Henry whispers, smug, “It makes me want to kiss you.” 

“So, kiss me,” Gansey says. 

Henry does, and Gansey, in turn, forgets all thoughts of Ronan. The past and his fears fall away as Henry grounds him in this present moment, in the cold rushing around them and burning at their skin. Henry feels like a fire against him, even though their lips are equally chilled. He feels like a candle melting Gansey down to wax. No, he feels like a star exploding inside him. 

Blue throws a snowball at both of them. Gansey laughs into Henry’s mouth. Henry seeks revenge. 

The moment devolves from there, until they’re all simultaneously shivering and sweating with cold and exertion. They’re all a little damp, with cold water seeping under their jackets and into their skin with the onslaught of snow-based attacks. They carry on that way until they get tired and bored and too cold for more. Gansey drives on and, along the way, they stop at a café for hot chocolate and central heating that works better than the Pigeon’s. 

Gansey is warm, warm, warm. Gansey is happy, happy, happy. 

Between Idaho and Wyoming, they dip up to Montana to visit David—the lightning strike victim that Gansey spent two days traveling the ley line with, his last stop before he moved onto Henrietta. They didn’t spend much time with each other, but Gansey holds fond memories for everyone that he’s ever worked on the ley lines with. Each person was an essential thread in the fabric of his hunt for Glendower. And, when Gansey had left David behind to go east, he had promised to say hello if he was ever in the area. 

He’s in the area now, so he goes to say hello. 

It’s odd, to say the least. Introducing Blue and Henry to someone who knew Gansey before is daunting and strange and a bit uncomfortable. Gansey feels nervous, like he’s bracing himself for something—for what, he doesn’t know. He feels like he’s introducing Blue and Henry not just to David, but to a part of himself that they’ve never seen before. It’s exactly how Gansey felt when he brought Malory to Henrietta. Two worlds colliding, two parts of Gansey coming together. It’s a good feeling, but an awkward one nonetheless. 

It’s not just that, though. It’s also the fact that Gansey has hardly seen another human besides Blue and Henry since July. Sure, there have been waiters and waitresses, fellow hikers, the psychic, the protesters in Oregon, but none of them were friends. None of them were peers or colleagues. They were strangers who existed only in his peripherals, who had their own lives that didn’t include him at all. David isn’t like that. David is an old friend—an acquaintance, at least—and they’ve come to Montana with the sole purpose of visiting him. It’s impossible to ignore reality. It’s impossible to ignore that there is a world outside of Gansey, Blue, Henry. GanseyBlueHenry. 

David, though it’s been years since Gansey saw him, still has that inexplicable fear of the indoors. So, they visit him in a snowy Montana field, and Gansey knows the visit won’t last long. If only because it’s so cold. If only because, immediately, he feels wrong for being here. Memories are coming back to Gansey, memories are Gansey. Time runs sideways, backwards, circular. 

Blue and Henry exchange pleasantries with David. There’s no instant connection, no unexplainable synergy between the four of them, but David is a nice guy and they chat, they say hello. 

David, of course, asks about Glendower. It’s not the first question out of his mouth, but it might as well be. Gansey feels like he hardly hears a thing before he hears, “So, did you ever find that king of yours?” 

Gansey sees Blue and Henry exchange a hurried glance. It seems a little worried in nature, but they have no reason to be. The reminder of Glendower doesn’t sting quite as badly as Gansey might have expected it to. He manages to stay present, in the field of Montana and not the underground cavern of Virginia, when he says, “Yes, I found his tomb. He was dead all along.” 

The part of Gansey that has been urging people to believe since he was ten years old wants to mention Gwenllian. He wants to say that the magic was possible, it just didn’t work for Glednower. But, then again, Gwenllian never slept. So maybe the magic wasn’t possible. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. Gansey doesn’t need David to believe him. And Gansey really, really shouldn’t admit to uncovering a centuries old Welsh woman. That’s likely to raise a few eyebrows. 

Covert is better. Simple truth is better. 

“Ah, man. That’s a shame,” David says, “but at least you found something, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Gansey says, but he’s not talking about the tomb. He’s looking at Blue and at Henry and they’re looking back at him too.

“Should we walk the ley line? For old time’s sake?” David asks, head cocked to one side. He admits, “I’ve still got that radio doo-dad.” 

Gansey laughs a little at the wording, but shakes his head. He says, “Nah, Davey. I think I’m good.” 

Blue and Henry smile at him, and Gansey knows that he is. He is good. 

After visiting Bighorn Forest for Blue, they head to Bighorn Medicine Wheel for Gansey. It’s a long hike up to the mountain and the stone formation, but it’s too fascinating to go unexplored, unseen. It’s too rich in history not to be discussed, so Gansey tells Blue and Henry everything he knows as they hike. He tells them, first, about medicine wheels in general, their importance in Native American culture and their prominence in states like Wyoming and Montana. He tells them that Bighorn, in particular, is one of the largest, most well preserved, and most well known Medicine Wheels. He explains that Bighorn Medicine Wheel was the first of its kind to be properly studied by the scientific community, exploring the Native American use of medicine wheels for, aptly, health and healing. Gansey rambles and Blue and Henry listen. They don’t ask many questions or engage much at all, but they let him talk and he knows they’re listening. 

When they finally reach the structure, Gansey’s breath is knocked from his chest. Stone formations are best seen from an aerial view, which is a luxury they do not have. Stone formations are best seen without obstructions, which is a luxury they do not have—there’s a fence, keeping them from getting too close. But none of those hindrances matter. Gansey’s breath still catches in his awe. 

“Now, this is Ganseylike,” Henry says. 

Gansey doesn’t know if it’s true. This is nothing like the basement of Aglionby, the robotic bee in his hand, the trading of secrets. There is no test of mettle here. This is, really, the stereotypical, surface level version of Ganseylike. But Henry knows that, and maybe that’s why he says it. Maybe he’s making a joke—if he is, it goes right over Gansey’s head. He’s too distracted to hear it. 

Most of Gansey is standing on the edge of this ancient site, tracing his eyes over the curves and spokes of the wheel’s shape, but part of him is in the air. The rumble of a helicopter burns underneath him, the raven stones of Henrietta light sparks within him. Part of Gansey is present, but part of him is past. Part of him is the first time Blue joined them on their hunt for Glendower. Part of him is the first time they discovered Cabeswater. 

Gansey is flooded with longing for that past, for that beginning. Gansey wants to do it all over again, and, he presumes, part of him is. The part of him that is made of roots and dreams and magic, is living every moment and every point in time. Again and again and again. Cabeswater is within him, circling the seasons over and over. Gansey is torn in two directions—three, four, five hundred. Infinite time and infinite ways to experience it. Gansey is living it all at once. 

He stumbles back a step. 

Blue catches his arm, his elbow. She holds him steady, she squeezes. Gansey turns into her, curls his face into her shoulder, the crook of her neck. It bends his spine uncomfortably to do so, but he doesn’t right himself. Everything is already uncomfortable anyway. Blue cups the back of his head, fingers sliding into his hair. 

“It’d be Ganseylike if there was a helicopter,” Blue says, jumping back in conversation, speaking to Henry like Gansey isn’t fraying in her arms. She’s thinking what he’s thinking too, about that day and that discovery, and that helps. It helps to know that he’s not the only one experiencing time backwards. Blue experiences it in memory, Gansey experiences it firsthand. The difference isn’t as stark as it seems, as Gansey thinks it should be. 

Gansey says, “That was Helen’s helicopter. Not mine.” 

“That doesn’t make it better,” Blue says, with a small gust of laughter against his cheek. Gansey straightens his spine, turns back to the stone. He settles. 

“It’d be Ganseylike if Gansey made you fly the helicopter,” Henry says. Then, with a wink in his direction, “Test of mettle.” 

And there’s the punchline.

Gansey smiles, wide and easy. The moment of discomfort passes as everything does, in time. Blue and Henry stand on either side of him, and he rattles off more facts, and they listen while he talks. Gansey needs nothing more than this. 

Weeks pass that way. In love. In light. Their travels take them through Wyoming, into South Dakota, and on to Iowa. They hike through Black Hills National Forest as Blue glows from the inside out, hands dragging over trees and into Henry’s or Gansey’s or, sometimes, both. They hit up the Adams Museum in South Dakota. It starts because of the name, but the history of it is rich and interesting. There’s a whole section about Calamity Jane; Gansey has a great time joking that she’s Blue’s namesake. South Dakota can’t be visited without a stop at Mount Rushmore, even though Blue and Henry complain about the honoring of corruption and men of power. Gansey doesn’t argue and he doesn’t disagree, but he manages to appease them both with his lips against theirs. Outside of Mount Rushmore, there’s a place called Dinosaur Park, and Henry forces them to stop. He’s grinning ear to ear the entire time. It’s ridiculous and fun and Henry hugs them both when they’re done—like he has something to thank them for. (He doesn’t. Gansey would do anything to make him smile like that. He knows Blue feels the same.) 

Gansey forgets all about the nightwash, about the Voice, about staggering into nature like a puppet on a string, about the threat of Ronan going too long away from the Barns or from his dreams. Gansey forgets it all, forgets reality entirely. He forgets everything that isn’t Blue and Henry and him, that isn’t motel rooms and hours in the Pigeon and hours spent just trading in quiet affection. Gansey, ultimately, loses himself in time. 

He loses himself in the present, which has never happened before. He’s lost himself in the past more times than he can count, he’s trailed away into the future more times than he can remember. He has strayed in every direction but he has never gone dormant. It’s like Cabeswater has gone silent within him, gone hibernating with the winter months. It’s like everything has narrowed down to second by second living. Gansey doesn’t think about the sensation—too afraid to knock himself out of alignment again, to wake Cabeswater again—but, if he did think about it, he’d describe it as a trickling stream that has met a blockade of rocks, fallen trees, leaves. 

The stream has stopped, but it will burst through again. That much Gansey is certain of, that much he knows. 

So, before reality can come knocking on his door, before Cabeswater can choke at him with vines in his veins, Gansey allows himself to enjoy it. He enjoys Blue grabbing his hand as they hike, grabbing Henry’s too so that they’re a three part monstrosity of dragging, dawdling pace. He enjoys teasing at Blue, at Jane. He enjoys listening to Henry and Blue debate on the same side of an issue, feeding each other’s flames of activism and injustice. He enjoys watching Henry’s entire face break with his smile. He enjoys it all as time passes. In love. In light. Through Wyoming, into South Dakota, and onto Iowa. 

It’s Christmas Eve and they’re in Pella, Iowa. It’s a town in Marion County, stylized to be reminiscent of Holland—Gansey has never been to Holland, but Pella makes him want to visit. He’ll add it to the list, and, like Venezuela, they’ll get there eventually. For now, though, December and their year are coming to a close, the sunset drawing close as Christmas draws nigh. 

Vermeer Mill sits near the center of Pella’s Historical Village, at the corner of 1st Street and Franklin Street. And, after dinner but before dusk, Gansey, Blue, and Henry make their way there.

Gansey has read up on the town and the windmill enough to know that it was originally built in the Netherlands, before being deconstructed and shipped to the United States. Where, in Pella, Iowa, the structure was reassembled in 2002. It’s not seeped in ancient history, it lingers on the recent side of time, but it feels ancient in the integrity of its design. Gansey will admit that, standing in front of the mill, he feels like he’s in another country altogether—another world, almost.

The streets are brimming with the Christmas Eve buzz, with families gathering and heading to or from church. But they’re only background noise to Gansey. They are an added feeling to the atmosphere, but they are not present in his mind. In his mind, it is just Blue and Henry and Vermeer Mill. 

“No fun facts for us, Gans?” Henry asks. He’s looking up at the structure, head tilted back a little and expression soft in gentle curiosity, quiet happiness. 

“The Vermeer Mill was built by Lukas Verbij,” Gansey says. He loops his arm around Henry’s waist, tugging him close to him. If asked, he would blame it on the cold or the crowded streets. “The building’s style is meant to replicate Dutch grain mills from the mid nineteenth century.” 

Henry laughs a little, an exhale of breath. 

“It’s quite pretty,” Blue says, from Henry’s other side. She shuffles closer, too, slips her hand into Henry’s. She won’t have a good excuse for that one, but she doesn’t seem to care. Gansey doesn’t really care either. He figures they can be visible here, be a little more obvious in their affection. Just as they aren’t paying attention to those around them, no one is paying attention to them either. 

The mill is spinning. The blades—the sails, in technical terms—are turning, churning. Turning. Churning. The sails are carried by the wind like a sailboat on a lake, a bay, an ocean. It’s an ever circling motion that isn’t stopping, that Gansey imagines won’t ever stop. Like time inside Gansey, like time all around him. This mill is the life inside Gansey, held up by the magic of nature and the care of something so deliberately and intentionally structured. This mill is heartbreakingly ordinary, and yet it is magic. 

“Your hand is freezing, Periwinkle,” Henry says. None of them are wearing gloves, or hats, or scarves. The day had been a little warmer—still chilled, but nearer to forty than thirty degrees—and they had forgotten their bundling layers. Of course, now, as it’s starting to get dark, they’re regretting their foolish ways. 

Blue says, with a layer of teasing to her Southern accent, “Warm me up then.”

Henry extracts himself from Gansey’s hold. Gansey allows himself one moment to grieve the loss, but then he’s swept away in giddy joy as Henry sweeps Blue off her feet. He hugs her tight and close, spins like the beautiful mill in front of them does. It’s a clumsy motion and they go careening down the sidewalk, laughing as they go and somehow, somehow, somehow managing not to face plant or knock into any innocent passersby. 

“Henry,” Blue complains, arms around his neck and face wide with her grin. 

Henry steadies them both with a kiss. His hands are firm on Blue’s waist, her hold secure around his shoulders. Henry dips her dramatically, she giggles into his mouth. The mill has entirely lost Gansey’s attention now. All he can focus on is them, all he can do is watch as they dance—not quite a waltz, but a parody of it—through the Historical Village of Pella, Iowa. 

Merry Christmas, indeed. 

When the morning comes around, there are no Christmas gifts exchanged. There are kisses shared and well wishes granted. There’s an hour spent tracking down a place that’s open for breakfast—they should’ve stocked up on food the night before, but they were distracted in new love and even newer sights—and another hour spent going through the motions of the meal. There’s a scenic route walk back to the motel, bundled in the hats and gloves and scarves that they neglected yesterday, with to-go coffees and hot chocolate in hand. Back at the motel, there’s empty time where Blue and Henry watch Elf and Gansey works on filling his journal with more marginalia, with more photographs, with more memories of love. 

They eat a late lunch and, after, Blue calls 300 Fox Way. 

The phone call lasts nearly three hours. Gansey spends most of it with Henry curled around him. Henry’s hand sneaks under Gansey’s sweater and traces ticklish patterns into the skin of his stomach. Gansey whispers at him to knock it off, but Henry doesn’t, and Gansey doesn’t ask again. He stays comfortable and content in Henry’s arms. 

Blue sits on the bed beside them, knees dragged up her chest and phone held between her shoulder and her ear. It leaves her hands free to touch them, but she hardly does. Mostly, her palms stay firmly planted on her knees as the Phone Room at 300 Fox Way becomes a revolving door of people wanting to say hello. 

When it’s Maura on the other line, Blue’s breath goes a little stilted. She’s going to tell her mom, Gansey knows. About her and him and Henry. It’s time, it’s been long enough. If Maura doesn’t already know—psychic as she is—then Blue wants to tell her. It’s different from Gansey telling Adam. Maura is a parent and that makes this phone call heavier, this secret harder to bear. Blue doesn’t like keeping secrets from Maura. 

Pleasantries and happy holidays are passed between the two Sargents. And then, it’s time. Gansey reaches out to touch Blue, to offer comfort. He wraps his hand around her ankle, pets a little at the soft skin there. Blue smiles down at him. Blue says, “Mom?” 

For a few seconds, Blue doesn’t say anything. Maura must be talking; Gansey can’t hear her. Eventually, though, Blue says, “Gansey and I are dating Henry now. And each other still.”

Henry kisses chastely at Gansey’s neck. Gansey nudges him gently with his elbow. 

After a brief eternity of silence, Blue’s expression breaks into a grin. Her posture relaxes at once, legs stretching out in front of her and her body slumping further down the bed. Like this, Gansey can reach her properly, so he does. He tucks his arms around Blue’s waist, pulls her back to his chest, so they’re three people in a line like cutlery in a drawer. 

“Thanks,” Blue is saying into the phone. She says, “I’ll tell ‘em.” 

Whatever message she’s supposed to pass along, she keeps to herself for now. With the new ease of tension lifted, Blue settles further into the conversation, and it stretches on another hour or two. Until Maura leaves and another person cycles through the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room. Blue, at some point, got tired of holding the phone to her ear, so it’s on speaker when Calla says, “How’s the pretty one?” 

“The pretty one,” Henry echoes into Gansey’s ear, quiet enough that Calla can’t hear it, loud enough that it trails goosebumps across Gansey’s skin. Henry’s never going to let him live that down, Gansey can tell. He’s not sure he minds, he quite likes the way it sounds in Henry’s voice. Or maybe just the way it feels whispered against his skin. 

“And the quiet one?” Calla asks, when Blue reports that Gansey is well. 

Gansey lets out a little huff of laughter. He tests the words out for himself, says, “The quiet one.” 

Henry pinches the skin of his stomach, in retaliation. Gansey yelps and Blue hisses at them both to shut up. That just makes Henry laugh, and neither Gansey nor Blue can begrudge him that. 

Hours pass just like that, curled in close and on the phone. It’s a nice way to spend Christmas, Gansey thinks. Next year, though, he hopes it’s more than just them three. Next year, he hopes it’s 300 Fox Way or the Barns crowded with friends and family alike. Next year. What a marvelous thought. 

The day after Christmas, they drive out of Pella and towards the eastern side of Iowa. They have no plans for their next destination, but, when they see a sign for Lover’s Leap, a swinging bridge near Columbus Junction, it seems only apt to stop. 

It doesn’t take them long to reach the beginning of the trail and a sign. The sign reveals a dark history in regards to the bridge, in regards to several rebuilds and several mysteries. It documents the date of each collapse and resurrection, starting in 1880 and stretching on to 1954. It documents the myth of an Indian maiden jumping from the bridge to the ravine below. It’s a biter tale and it's bitterly cold, but they’re going to cross this bridge regardless. Gansey is very glad he doesn’t have a fear of heights. 

Gansey’s eyes are drawn to the last of the sign’s sentences, which reads: The trees know, and they won’t tell. 

Coincidence. Meaning that it wasn’t. (In this case, Gansey thinks it probably is only coincidence, but he can’t quiet the part of his brain that’s been looking for clues, for signs, for proof of magic since he was ten years old. Since before that, probably.) 

Gansey asks, joking more than he is serious, “Do you think the trees speak Latin?” 

“Ronan didn’t dream this place, so probably not,” Blue answers, with more sincerity than Gansey was anticipating. 

“That we know of,” Gansey says. They continue past the sign and onto a path. Fallen leaves and twigs crunch under their feet, a quiet accompaniment in the chilly air. “For all we know, Ronan dreamt the world.” 

“He’s not that Godlike,” says Blue, and the conversation ends as the height of the ravine and the bridge is approached. As expected, the bridge is swinging in wait for them. 

The whole thing is a bit terrifying, and Gansey is, immediately, rethinking the claim that he isn’t scared of heights. The bridge is a combination of steel cable and wood, and it rocks gently, menacingly in the wind. On this side—and, Gansey presumes, likely on the other side too—is a metal structure, like a cabana of sorts, with two benches of wood that look like they’re decaying with rot and time. That doesn’t bode well for the partly wooden bridge waiting to take their weight. 

The sight is made worse by the barren trees of the winter month. If the world was lush with soft green blankets of nature, then maybe this wouldn’t be so intimidating. But, as it stands, the trees are bare and Gansey is intimidated. 

“Is this thing safe?” Henry asks as all three of them stop at the bridge’s edge. They’re hesitating. 

“Safe as life,” Blue says, stealing Gansey’s words and using them as her own. Gansey likes how they sound in her voice, in her accent. She takes the first step onto the swinging bridge and, expectedly, it swings beneath her feet. She lets out a soft noise of surprise, but it filters into a peel of laughter. Fearless, she starts the trek across the bridge, looking back just enough to say, “C’mon!” 

“You next, Hen,” Gansey says. He doesn’t like the idea of keeping Henry behind him, where he can’t see him, where he can’t watch as fear and joy battle within him. 

“Catch me if I fall to my death, won’t you?” Henry asks, eyes gleaming with mischief and adrenaline. 

“Sure thing, my knight,” Gansey says. 

“Oh, your knight?” Henry echoes, smug and smiling. Gansey’s thinking about keeping him on solid land long enough to kiss him, but then Blue calls for them to hurry up, and Henry turns to face the bridge. He takes his first step, and nothing terrible happens. His hands are shaking at his sides a little, but they’re not clenched in fists and he takes a second step, so. 

So, Gansey takes the leap. He follows them onto the swinging bridge. Three lovers, Gansey thinks. He wonders if the trees will remember them too, if the trees will keep their secrets, if the trees have ever felt as weightless and free and brave as this. Gansey feels, in a way, like he’s flying. 

Blue is laughing, Henry is quiet, Gansey is flying. Three lovers. One leap.

They survive. They make it to the other side of the bridge unscathed, wrapped in laughter and joy as solid ground meets their feet once more. It’s a shocking juxtaposition: the swinging of the bridge and the depths below them changing to steady gravity and unwavering motion. It’s reminiscent of getting out of a pool. It’s Gansey swimming laps and laps and laps, and then, all at once, the weight returning to his body as he emerges from the chlorinated water. It’s heavy and awkward and Gansey wants the weightlessness back. And, despite his previous hesitation and intimidation, Gansey’s tempted to turn around and feel the bridge beneath him again. He’s tempted walk the more than two hundred feet back to the other side, back to where they came from. 

The weather, however, stops them from doing so. It was a perfectly sunny day, bright and clear and just right for the adventure of crossing the ravine. But, nearly as soon as they cross, dark clouds tumble overhead. Thunder booms as the world dulls to shades of gray, saturation bleeding out of the December day. 

“Where did this come from?” Blue asks, but it’s a rhetorical question. Rain is an inevitability now, and none of them want to cross the bridge in those conditions. Which is fine. They can walk the path from this side of the ravine back down to the parking lot; it just means the trip to the Pigeon will be longer. So, Blue speaks, rhetorically, and the three of them share eye contact. One, two seconds. In the third, they take off down the path, laughing as they sprint to beat the rain. 

They barely make it to the Pigeon in time. Gansey fumbles with the keys as the downpour begins. Blue, for the second time today, yells at him to hurry up. Gansey hurries and they pile into the orange Camaro as the rain dumps down around them. It pounds heavily on the roof of the car and echoes loud against their senses. For Gansey, it’s all his senses. For Gansey, it’s the memory of rain in a forest and in the middle of the road. For Gansey, it’s a struggle to keep his ley line heart from straying.

“Search for a motel,” Blue says. “I don’t think we should drive around aimlessly looking for one in this weather.” 

Gansey agrees, and, after a quick Google search, he finds a motel just outside of Columbus Junction. It’s only a ten minute drive. And so, when they arrive, the storm hasn’t eased at all. The sky remains angry and tantruming. Hastily, they abandon the Pigeon to make for the supposed safety of indoors. They leave most of their belongings in the car, grabbing only the essentials as the mad dash commences. They sprint through the rain with shoulders damp, damp, damp. 

Gansey isn’t bothered, though. Gansey is entirely joyous. 

“Where are the Bee Gees going?” Henry asks. His hair’s wet from his shower as he plops down on the nearest bed. He pulls his legs closer to him with both hands, keeping his fingers curled under himself—protected. 

Blue, if she sees the telling, concerning, habitual movement, doesn’t comment on it. She gives Henry one of those no nonsense faces of hers. Gansey wants to know where she learned it—certainly not at home at 300 Fox Way, the most beautifully wonderfully nonsense house of all. Blue says, purposefully unimpressed but with that shine in her eyes giving her amusement away, “You know there’s a plural you that you, singular, can use, right?”

“Oh, but where’s the fun in that, B?” Henry asks. His fingers uncurl and he tips back to lean his weight on his palms. He’s stretching himself out, flirty and vulnerable and open and—

“Uhh, yeah, I really don’t think we should let that nickname stick,” Gansey deflects. 

“Not bee, Gansey, B,” says Henry. Gansey can’t quite imagine where the difference between the two sounds lies. 

“Whatever distinction you’re hearing, I’m not,” Gansey says, not unkindly; it’s never unkind when it’s Henry and language. Soft still, he offers, “Maybe just… maybe stay with the shades of blue.” 

“Or, get this,” Blue cuts in, “you could also just call me by my name.” 

Gansey winks at Henry, an all too rudimentary secret code, and then he turns his gaze to Blue. There’s a cloying sweetness when their eyes lock. Gansey feels it zip toward his jaw like a buzz, like the fruit at the bottom of a yogurt cup and a shared spoon. He borrows Henry’s words and says, smug in the way that he hates to be, “Where’s the fun in that, Jane?”

“Are we going to the vending machine or not?” Blue asks, all but ignoring his quip. But Gansey can tell—by the placement of her tongue because that’s something he watches, apparently—that she’s tempted to drop a Dick at the end of her sentence. She doesn’t, because she knows he doesn’t like it and she’s a better person than him and all his Jane. Gansey’s heart warms and he adjusts his glasses to shield the crinkle of his eyes from her; she sees it anyway.

“Bring me back some Cheetos.” 

Henry interrupts. He notices the heavy moment and shatters it with the most casual of requests. Gansey looks at him, to make sure it’s not a ruse or a facade, that the indifference is real and not a cover up for exclusion or hurt, but Henry’s body is still slumped and his eyes are blinking slow, tired. He’s easy and calm and Gansey feels the same feelings run down to his toes in response.

“You're not eating Cheetos in our bed,” Blue says, “pick something less messy.”

“Who says I’m sharing with you?”

In the weeks since the changing in the nature of their relationship, on the nights when they get a two-bed motel room, when they can split up instead of being “forced” to bundle in close, Blue and Henry usually share a mattress while Gansey usually gets an entire queen bed to himself. It burns a little. It always does when he’s away from them, from the group, from the ones that saved him. It aches like a sore muscle when they can’t be near, but it’s Gansey’s fault, not theirs. His insomnia is still abysmal, still makes him restless and longing for Ronan. He tosses and turns and his limbs kick for most hours of the night and he feels too guilty to let them in close—even though he feels worse when they’re far, even though he probably would sleep better if they tucked him in between them like two parentheses, like (Gansey).

There’s a hidden question, or a plea, in Henry’s words. His inflection is even and subtle, but Gansey hears it as he hears most of the unsaid things Henry says. Henry is asking Gansey to sleep beside him tonight. 

“You can eat Cheetos in our bed,” Gansey tells him. Not quite a yes, but not a denial either. 

“Blue, hurry up and take him away or I’m going to have to kiss him, and then you’re going to have to go to the vending machine by yourself,” Henry says in a rush of words and a delivery far too dramatic for what the situation requires. He’s once again deflating the moment, popping the tension like a pin prick to an overfilled balloon.

Blue shrugs like she wouldn’t mind that, and Gansey is sure Henry’s words are an invitation, but he slips past Blue and out into the hall anyway. Tempting as it is, he’s hungry and, if he starts kissing Henry now, he’ll never stop.

Henry wanted Cheetos. 

Blue pays for the snacks, picks out hers and Gansey’s even without his permission, signature, approval. She doesn’t need it. She knows him well, gets him peanut butter crackers. 

There was always a box of Ritz back at Monmouth and a half eaten jar of peanut butter in the cabinet—Gansey knows the jars must’ve been full and empty at some points, but, in his memory, they’re always half gone, like he was at the time. Gansey used to make him and Ronan crackers in the middle of the night, set them out directly on the counter or in his palm and slather them with peanut butter with a knife that Ronan would sometimes lick after, if he was aiming to get Gansey to cuff the back of his head and drag Ronan to safety—usually, that came in the form of bodies pressed too close on the hard, blanket covered, soon to be crumb covered floor. Gansey’s bed was right there, but they didn’t share it often. Gansey’s not sure why, but maybe that was Ronan’s influence, his choice. Possibly, that was Ronan’s secret feeling too close to the surface, even though the two of them sharing a bed never meant anything more than two brothers playing hide and seek with sleep.

Gansey misses Ronan again, for the second time in the space of seven minutes. 

(Gansey wonders if he should call Ronan. He wonders if he’s awake right now, putting off dreaming on the East Coast, a couple hours deeper into the darkness. Gansey wonders if Ronan would be gracious or desperate enough to pick up this time, if Gansey did call. He wonders if Ronan knows that Gansey still thinks of sleepless night time as theirs, as sacred and holy like the pews of St Agnes.)

“You didn’t kiss him,” Blue observes. She must notice the signs of him retreating, falling back in time even as he stands here in the hall—limbs idle, posture perfect. She doesn’t tell him to come back, but her voice finds him anyway, like the recorder in the cemetery on St. Mark’s Eve. She finds him and she brings him back to now. 

“I committed to coming with you,” Gansey says. It probably wouldn’t much matter if he had stayed, if he had accepted Henry’s offer of affection. Gansey wants it, wants the closeness and the reassurance and the comfort that he only feels when he’s not alone. Probably it wouldn’t have mattered if Gansey had stayed with Henry. Blue might’ve even liked it. To leave them, to go out to get food, to provide for them. To come back to find them intertwined. But it feels important, still, to say, “I’m a man of my word.”

Blue makes a face like she can’t believe she puts up with him. Then, she leans down and takes all their snacks from the bottom of the vending machine. When she rights herself, hands full and occupied, she stretches up to kiss him. It’s not tentative or nervous anymore, but it is chaste. It’s gentle, a declaration and a reminder that they get to have this. They got out—out of death and out of prophecies. They got out and so they get this: a press of lips that was never supposed to be theirs. 

Blue drops the bag of Cheetos. The crinkly plastic impact pulls them apart. Gansey laughs and retrieves Henry’s snack.

The morning is calm, lacking in the previous night’s storm. Gansey, predictably, wakes up in a bed coated in Cheeto crumbs and with his legs tangled close with Henry’s. Henry is already awake, it seems, by the way he’s watching a video game walk through on his phone. He’s got his headphones in, so as not to wake Gansey. It’s a sweet gesture, makes Gansey’s pulse pound. 

Gansey adjusts a little, finds room for his head on Henry’s shoulder. He watches Henry’s phone as blurry—he hasn’t yet put his glasses on—animated characters shoot other blurry animated characters. Gansey doesn’t quite get the appeal, so he shuts his eyes again. He doesn’t see it when Henry takes one of his headphones out, but he feels it when he drops a kiss to his forehead.

“Morning, lovebug,” Henry says, soft. Gansey wants to laugh at the term of endearment, but he doesn’t want to laugh at Henry, so he keeps himself quiet. He just presses a little further into Henry. Sleepy. 

“Is Jane up?” Gansey asks. He doesn’t want to open his eyes. They feel heavy, heavy, heavy. 

“No,” Henry says. At the same time that Blue says, “Yes.” 

Gansey kicks one of his feet against Henry’s. He’s not sure why he does it, but he’s glad he does when Henry knots their legs together a little tighter, stopping Gansey from doing it again. The whole morning feels perfect, feels nice, feels slow, feels easy. Gansey could fall back asleep again. 

He doesn’t. 

He rouses, pushing himself from the bed and out of Henry’s arms. He returns the favor in a planted kiss to Henry’s hairline, finally puts his glasses on, and starts trying to figure out how to work the room’s coffee maker. If Gansey fiddles with it long enough, Henry will come to his rescue regardless. 

“Sleep okay?” Blue asks him. Gansey hears the blankets of her bed rustling. She comes to stand behind him, arms looping around his waist and face nuzzling at his bare back in a decidedly drowsy gesture. “Not too crumby?” 

“I slept well,” Gansey informs her. Her arms tighten around him a little. Pleased, Gansey thinks. 

As expected, Henry comes to Gansey’s rescue and makes the coffee for him. Gansey misses Monmouth’s ancient coffee maker with only two buttons—on and off. When plugged in, it would spark a little and the coffee usually tasted a little like plastic, but Gansey and Ronan had never complained. It was part of Monmouth’s charm, all the broken pieces—part of their charm too. This motel’s coffee machine doesn’t spark and it doesn’t put out a slight smell of smoke. It’s got too many buttons and it’s too shiny, but it makes a satisfying noise when Henry finally hits start and the coffee finally starts to brew, to drip into the waiting mug. 

The motel room is warm. Probably they cranked the heat up too high last night, with the chill of the rain still clinging to their skin in the bleak weather outside. Gansey feels flushed with it, clammy. He opens his mouth to ask Blue or Henry if they’re feeling the heat too, but nothing comes out. He stammers and stops trying. Closes his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down hard enough that his vision stops swimming. 

He hadn’t noticed that it had started swimming. 

Fire, Gansey thinks. He’s not sure where it comes from, but, once it’s there, it consumes him. Once the thought lands, it takes over his mind. His memory stretches back and back and back, through every fire that ever was. Cabeswater has seen them all so Gansey sees them all. Burning timber, burning books, burning houses, burning people. Gansey wants to flinch against the images, but he can’t move. Blue is still holding him around the waist, but it’s not her grip that’s keeping him up. It’s something else. Something paralyzing. Something more, more, more. 

The fire is inside Gansey now, eating at his bones, his organs, his stolen heart. He can feel it pouring through his veins like liquid heat. He’s really sweating now, really stammering, really struggling to stay on his feet. This isn’t just the room being too warm, Gansey knows. This is something else. 

More, more, more. 

“Gansey?” Henry says. He’s holding out a mug of coffee, like an offering, but the look in his eyes tells Gansey that he knows. He knows that Gansey is spinning, spinning, spinning. Gansey’s trembling too much to answer, biting on his lip so hard it draws blood. 

“Darlin’, are you okay?” Blue’s voice is warm and familiar in his ear, like vanilla in its depth and sweetness. 

Gansey whispers, “Ronan.” 

And then, he falls out of Blue’s arms and to the floor. And then, he falls asleep. 

Quiet. 

Time runs away from Gansey. It disappears. What he was once the master of—or what was, at least, once the master of him—has abandoned him entirely. There’s no past, no present, no future. There’s just absolute quiet. 

Gansey hasn’t dreamed in over a year, since before Cabeswater took him into its care. Gansey doesn’t know what this is, but, if he had to give it a word, he’d say it’s a dream. It’s a sea of nothing, infinity stretching on and on and on around him. It’s endless space and Gansey feels insignificant in its embrace, feels minuscule in the never ending length of it. It’s dark, but not in a way that he can’t see. It’s dark in the way of a void. It’s dark in the way that Gansey isn’t awake, but he isn’t quite asleep either.

Quiet. 

Quiet is a tangible thing here. It wraps around Gansey’s throat like a noose, choking and restricting and killing him. It wraps around Gansey like a hug, protecting and holding and warming him up. Gansey remembers fire, but there’s no fire here. There’s just darkness and even darker corners playing pretend at being shadows. There’s just silence. Silence. Silence. 

Quiet. 

Absolute quiet, and yet Gansey knows he’s not alone. There is nothing around him but nothing, nothing, nothing. And yet. And yet, Gansey is being observed. Gansey is being watched. Gansey is being studied by something that is perfectly silent, perfect in its concealment. It eats at Gansey almost as much as the quiet does, as the darkness does, as the nothing does.

The nothing really is nothing. It’s not darkness, it’s not blackness, it’s just nothing. It’s the black ooze from his nose made solid, made something Gansey can stand upon. Except— Is he standing? Gansey cannot see himself. He should be able to look down, to see his feet meeting the obsidian dark ground of this nothingness, of this cavern that has swallowed him whole. But he looks down and he sees nothing but more nothing. His body isn’t here, or, if it is, it isn’t Gansey’s anymore. It isn’t Gansey anymore. 

You know what you want. 

Gansey hasn’t heard the Voice in a month, and even now it’s heard but not heard. It’s in his head and it’s everywhere, but it isn’t spoken. But still, Gansey recognizes it immediately. It’s louder than it’s ever been; it shatters the silence. It bursts through the quiet like a focused, targeted bomb going off. The explosion, the destruction litters the ground with fragmented pieces of silence. Shards of quiet glass hit Gansey. The impact stings like he's being cut, being torn open, but he also can’t feel a thing. It also feels like nothing. 

I know what you want. 

Gansey wants the Voice to leave. He’s never hated it before. He’s never been terrified of it before. But he hates it now and he’s terrified of it now. Because wherever Gansey is, whatever protective quiet was just broken, Gansey knows the Voice can hurt him here. Gansey knows the Voice is what has been watching, watching, watching. 

I can wake you up.

Gansey’s not asleep, though. If he was asleep, this wouldn’t be happening. If he was asleep, there would be no dream. There wouldn’t be enough of anything for there to be nothing. If Gansey were asleep, then he wouldn’t be aware, awake. Afraid. Afraid. Afraid. 

Do not be so afraid that you do not live. 

Gansey’s not alive, though. If he was alive, this wouldn’t be happening. If he was alive, Blue and Henry would be here. There would be something in all of this nothing. If he was alive, he would be afraid and happy. But here, in this state that isn’t sleep but isn’t wake, in this state that isn’t life but isn’t death, Gansey is just afraid. Afraid. Afraid. 

Do not be afraid. I can wake you. I can save you. Do not be afraid.

The Voice. The Voice. The Voice. That’s all there is. Just Gansey—who isn’t even sure if he is Gansey anymore—and the Voice, and nothing. The nightwash drip of nothing, nothing, nothing. The Voice and nothing more. Something more. Gansey. That’s all there is.

Then, light. 

Then, a new voice. 

Then, “Stay away from him.” 

Then, None of it is for you, Greywaren. 

Then, Ronan. 

Then, quiet. 

Then. 

It’s Ronan, but it isn’t. In the same way that Gansey is Gansey, but he also isn’t. There’s no familiar sight of Ronan walking up to him, posture terrible and hair buzzed, but the shape of him is familiar nonetheless. It’s one of those darker corners, one of those things that isn’t a shadow but isn’t anything else either. It’s darkness, carved in lines that Gansey recognizes only from Ronan’s tattoo. It’s the wings of a raven, a beak, a claw. It’s the sharpness of a knife, a blood coated blade, a sword shining and slick. It’s the crowded trees of a forest, its branches, its roots. It’s Ronan, but not Ronan as Gansey has ever known him. And yet, Gansey knows it’s him. And yet, Gansey knows him. 

“Ronan,” Gansey says. It comes out more like, Ronan. Not quite words, not quite a language that exists out loud. 

“Cut that shit out,” Ronan says. Gansey can’t tell where his voice is coming from, but it’s not like the Voice. The Voice is booming and all encompassing in a sea like this one. The Voice is a physical thing that cuts and coats and covers. Ronan’s voice is just a voice. He says, “Don’t use that language.” 

“Ronan,” Gansey tries again. That time, it comes out more like, “Ronan.” 

“Close enough,” Ronan says. There’s no posturing here, there’s none of Ronan’s bluster. He’s stripped down to nothing that isn’t actually, exactly nothing. This is vulnerability as Gansey has never known it from Ronan before. “How long have you been here?” 

“Seconds,” Gansey says. “Minutes,” Gansey says. “Days,” Gansey says. “Months,” Gansey says. “Years.” 

All are true, in their own way. Gansey has no idea which is the truth. 

“Helpful,” Ronan says. Meaning that it wasn’t. 

Gansey wonders what Ronan can see of him now. Gansey wonders if his shape is the same as Ronan’s, or different. It must be different. There’s no way Gansey is made up of shadows as dark as his, lines as sharp as his, depths as vast as his. There’s no way they’re the same when Ronan has always been foreign. Something more. 

Gansey feels closer to understanding what Ronan is than he has ever felt before. It also feels more irrelevant than it’s ever felt. 

“Ronan,” Gansey says. He’s thinking he should ask about the Voice. Ronan seemed to know the Voice; the Voice seemed to know Ronan. Gansey doesn’t want to ask, though. He says, instead, “Is this a dream?” 

Ronan laughs. It’s a horrifying sound coming from a shapeless being shaped like ravens and claws and beaks, knives and blades and blood, trees and roots and branches. It’s too familiar, unfamiliar, familiar. Gansey is reminded, distantly, of Gwenllian’s voice through Chainsaw’s mouth. That’s what this is. This is Ronan through something that both is and isn’t Ronan. 

But the Ronan that Gansey knows… is he both Ronan and not Ronan? Surely he must be if this shape is him, too. Him but not. Not him but him. 

Gansey’s starting to twist in confusion, in distress. Normally, this is the part where he would push his glasses up and rub at his eyes. Normally, this is the part where his head would hurt and he would take a walk until it stopped. But there’s no body here. There are no eyes to rub, no feet to walk. There’s nothing here for him. There’s nothing here to feel pain, and yet Gansey feels it anyway. 

“Don’t stray,” Ronan says. “I don’t know how long it took me to find you, and I don’t know if I would be able to do it again. I wasn’t even— I wasn’t looking for you.” 

That sounds like Ronan was looking for something else. Gansey doesn’t ask what he was looking for. He just tries to stop himself from knotting further. He just repeats, “Is this a dream?” 

“No. Yes. Does it matter?” Ronan’s tired. Gansey can tell. “It’s all the same.” 

“To you,” Gansey says. Something lies unspoken between them. It’s physically there. Gansey can see the unreal form of it. It writhes and shakes and shivers. It’s like air, it’s like water, it’s like fire. It says: Not to me. 

“We’re more alike than you think,” Ronan says. He doesn’t explain it. He’s not explaining anything. It could be a lie of omission, but it could also be that Ronan doesn’t know. Maybe Ronan is as clueless as Gansey is. Maybe he’s lacking in answers too. 

Gansey finds that hard to believe. 

But, probably, Ronan’s just as clueless for now. He’s got the answers, he just hasn’t found them within himself yet. Gansey’s got nothing to find. Gansey’s got nothing. Gansey is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

“Seriously, man, stop that,” Ronan says. Gansey doesn’t know what Ronan means. “Stop fucking about.” 

Gansey tries to stop fucking about. 

He fails. 

Ronan has to sweep in with all his dark corners and gather Gansey in close. Now, Ronan is more like the Voice. All encompassing, overwhelming, loud. Now, Ronan is a little scary in how he stretches out far, far, far. Farther than Gansey can see or reach himself. Into nothing and out of nothing and through nothing. Now, Ronan gathers all of Gansey’s straying pieces and bundles them in his arms that aren’t arms at all. 

Gansey remembers Monmouth. Gansey remembers sleeping next to Ronan. Gansey remembers never getting close; Gansey remembers never going far. 

“Stay,” Ronan says, like Gansey is a dog that he’s chastising. “Here.” 

Here isn’t a physical component. Here is now. 

Gansey understands, now, what Ronan meant by stop fucking about. If Gansey knew how to stop straying in time, he would. Gansey tells him, “You dreamt me this way.” 

“Fuck off,” Ronan says. “I didn’t dream you and I didn’t dream Cabeswater.” He says, “If I did, you wouldn’t be here.” 

“Where would I be?” Gansey asks. That seems an important idea, answer, detail. But Gansey can’t discern why. 

“Asleep.” 

“This isn’t sleep?” 

“No, dumbass.” 

“Badass. Bad ass.” 

“Fuck off.”’ 

Gansey stays close. Ronan stays close. They stay. Stay. 

Where they are doesn’t matter when they are together. What they are doesn’t matter when they are together. When they are doesn’t matter when they are together. Why they are doesn’t matter when they are together. How they are doesn’t matter when they are together. Who they are is all that matters: Ronan and Gansey, Gansey and Ronan. Not quite Ronan, not quite Gansey. Close. Close enough. 

Where, what, when, why, how. None of it matters, but maybe that’s only because they don’t know. Ronan knows, Gansey thinks. Ronan knows but he’s not sharing, not with Gansey and not with himself. Gansey can’t make Ronan do anything, he gave up on the notion a long time ago. So. So. So. 

None of it matters. 

They are not alone, wherever and whenever and however they are. 

The Voice doesn’t come back and the Ronan doesn’t leave. That matters. Ronan keeps his dark drawn shape drawn dark around Gansey. Gansey was wrong before: Ronan is not a shadow any more than he is nothing. He’s not even a shadow pretending to be a shadow. Ronan is a reflection. Ronan is light, but light hidden. Ronan is a refraction, a beam, a tattoo. Ronan is saturated against the unsaturated emptiness that’s all around them. Ronan is color and light, he just puts it out all at once. 

He’s a secret. 

Gansey likes secrets. Gansey knows the language of secrets. 

Ronan.

“I told you not to talk like that,” Ronan says. He coils tighter around Gansey. He’s a snake in the grass, he’s a hug. “It’s dangerous.” 

“Why?” Gansey asks. “Is someone listening?” 

Gansey knows someone—something—is, but he won’t ask about the Voice if Ronan doesn’t bring it up first. There’s no point. It’s impossible to get answers out of Ronan when he doesn’t want to give them. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Ronan omits. 

“Is this because of the nightwash?” 

“It might as well be,” Ronan avoids. 

“Is this real?” 

“It could be,” Ronan deflects. 

“This is a horrible conversation, I hope you know that,” Gansey says. He draws himself in smaller, smaller, smaller. He wants Ronan to gather around him closer, tighter. He does. He leaves no space between them. So that they are light that makes itself dark tangled with whatever Gansey is. 

Gansey still doesn’t ask what he is. 

(He knows enough. He knows this is Cabeswater. He knows this is a forest that isn’t a forest. He knows this is him.) 

“Why are you doing that?” Ronan asks. “Why are you shrinking?” 

“I want to,” Gansey says. It won’t last, though. He can only make himself so small. He’ll get to a certain point and then it will be too much. The pressure will build and he’ll bloom again. He’ll spiral outwards and then… and then Ronan might not be able to hold him. Gansey might push himself away from Ronan. 

Gansey stops coiling. 

“Weird,” Ronan says. 

Something tugs at Gansey. Nothing tugs at Gansey. Something tugs at Gansey. 

“Stop doing that,” Gansey says. Ronan says, “Stop doing that.” 

Neither one of them is doing that. 

Something tugs at Gansey. He’s unwinding, he’s branching outward, he’s changing. Nothing tugs at Gansey. He’s spiraling, he’s dying, he’s breathing. Something tugs at Gansey. He’s holding on, he’s letting go, he’s leaving. 

“Gansey,” Ronan says. “Gansey,” Ronan says. Gansey, Ronan says. 

Something tugs. Gansey disappears. Nothing tugs. Gansey is gone. Something tugs.

Gansey wakes up. 

He comes to as quickly as he fell asleep. He gasps himself awake with panic flaring in his lungs, with fire burning his mind, with tears welling in his eyes. It’s a violent tug, a harsh yank and then he’s stumbling through a sea of nothing, across time, and into life. Into the present, into now, into Henry. 

“There he is,” Henry says. The sun shines around him like a halo. Gansey thinks: angel. Gansey thinks: knight. 

“Ronan,” Gansey heaves. It’s like he’s retching. His body is fighting having a body when he didn’t have one just moments ago. Just hours ago. Just lifetimes ago. None of it is real, and yet all of it is. Gansey is crying and panting and gripping hard at Henry’s wrist. He doesn’t remember grabbing it, but he’s not letting go now. He’s not letting go ever again.

He let go of Ronan. Ronan. 

“No, it’s Henry,” Henry says. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. Gansey itches to touch him there, so he does. It soothes nothing and everything. 

Gansey hears Blue before he sees her. 

“Who are you talking to? Did Declan call ag—?” And then, her voice drops off into silence. Over Henry’s shoulder, her eyes lock with Gansey’s. Gansey’s hazel eyes that are open. She blinks three times. She smiles through the word, “Baby.” 

Henry tries to move away, but Gansey squeezes at his wrist. Probably it’s hard enough to hurt now. Gansey should stop, but he can’t. Henry can’t go anywhere, but Blue also needs to come closer, closer, closer. 

“I’m not leaving,” Henry says, “just backing up, giving Blue a turn. I won’t leave your sight.” 

Reluctantly, Gansey pries his own fingers from around Henry’s slender wrist. As promised, Henry backs up enough that Blue can squeeze in between them, but he doesn’t leave Gansey’s sight. Gansey can’t see anything but them, but Blue or Henry. He doesn’t know where he is, but it doesn’t matter when they’re together. It doesn’t matter when Blue is cupping his face and kissing his lips and whispering, “You scared the hell out of me.” 

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Gansey says into her lips. She tastes like coffee. She doesn’t normally drink it, but he can taste it on her tongue. Gansey doesn’t like that detail. It’s alarming; it’s wrong. But he likes the kiss, so he doesn’t stray. 

“It’s not your fault,” Blue says. Her mouth twists, crooking to one side. Her shoulders bob, jostling with something between fatigue and adrenaline. Gansey realizes, then, as his attention is caught in her movement, that she’s leaning over him. It must mean he’s sitting down. He hadn’t noticed the fact. He still hasn’t really noticed it—he’s deduced it. He’s figured it out, even though his body still feels far away. Still feels hardly his. Blue hesitates, and then she adds, “Someone shutdown the ley lines.” 

Gansey says nothing. For a long moment, there’s just quiet. Not the physical quiet of the sea of nothingness, but the normal quiet that Gansey has always known. It feels insufficient now that he’s experienced the silence that had its own gravity and its own shape and its own ability to be shattered and weaponized all the same. Gansey, finally, manages, “What?” 

“A dreamer,” Blue says. “A dreamer shutdown the ley lines. All the energy is gone.” 

“And that’s why you fell asleep,” Henry says. Blue is the sun and he is the moon, their forms above him are an eclipse. “But you’re awake now, which means there must be a sweetmetal in the Pigeon, right?” 

That’s where Gansey is. As soon as Henry says it he understands that the warm leather beneath him and the familiar gasoline scent is the backseat of the Pigeon. 

“The journal,” Blue says, smiling wider than Gansey thinks the situation elicits. She pushes Gansey’s hair back from his forehead. She says, “You saved yourself, hm?” 

“What?” he asks. He tilts his neck to look at her. He feels undone. 

“Sweetmetal,” Henry says. “Definition: a piece of art embedded with a feeling or an experience that taps into the magic of ley lines. They have the power to keep dreams awake—a very valuable commodity now that all dreams have gone to sleep all over the globe.” 

Gansey’s first thought is: Matthew. Gansey’s second thought is: Henry and Blue and our love saved me. Gansey’s third thought is: “I didn’t fall asleep.” 

“Sure you did, honey,” Blue says. Her voice is patient with him, but Gansey can hear the worry underneath. “You passed out and you’ve been comatose ever since. It’s been over a week.”

The span of time doesn’t concern Gansey as much as he thinks it should. He would’ve thought it had been longer. An eternity, an infinity. Gansey says, “Okay. I was asleep. But I wasn’t asleep like other dreams. I was asleep like Ronan. With Ronan.” 

“You were sleeping with Ronan? Dirty,” Henry says. 

Gansey ignores him. He says, “I don’t know where we were. I don’t know what we were.” (Not entirely human, not entirely not human. The revelation should probably beg for more of Gansey’s attention than it does. Really, it’s no surprise. Ronan has always been something peculiar and otherworldly. Gansey became something peculiar and otherworldly that was peculiar and otherworldly long before Gansey ever existed as human—an always before it became his now.) “But I do know that when the— the sweetmetal,” Gansey tries out the word, he likes the way it tastes, “woke me, I just left him. You have to let me go back. Just for a minute. Just so I can tell him I’m okay.” 

Gansey didn’t mean to abandon Ronan, but he did. It feels like the worst thing he’s ever done.

“No,” Henry says, suddenly serious. He takes up Blue’s spot just in front of him again. He repeats, “No.” 

“Please,” Gansey whispers. He shatters against the word, cracks and breaks with it. His eyes sting again. 

“You can’t,” says Blue. 

“I can,” Gansey argues. 

“You can’t,” Henry says. He runs his finger down Gansey’s nose, he presses his finger against his lips. He says, “You already said you didn’t know where you were. If we let you sleep again, you might not even find him. If we let you sleep again, you might not wake up. But Ronan will be okay.” 

Gansey believes him until the last sentence. 

“Where is he?” Gansey says, speaking against Henry’s finger. The pad of his fingertip tickles a little. Then, he rectifies, “Where’s his body?” 

“In Boston,” Henry says. “With Parrish and Declan and Jordan—another dream, and possibly Declan’s girlfriend. We’re going to start making our way there now, and, once we are there, if Ronan isn’t awake yet, we can reconvene this discussion.” He removes his finger from Gansey’s lips. “Okay?” 

“Okay,” Gansey says. It’s not what he wants, but he understands. The compromise will have to be enough for now. “Will one of you ride in the back with me?” 

“Anything for our king,” Henry says. And then he kisses him. It’s like being tugged awake all over again. 

They’ve been driving for seven hours straight. Blue has been curled around Gansey in the backseat in a way that probably wouldn’t be very safe if they crashed, but that feels safer than anything when Gansey still feels staggering and vulnerable and half-human, half-something more. Henry has been behind the wheel, making greater time than Blue ever could. They haven’t rested, they haven’t slept. It’s well past dark and Gansey is starting to grow concerned. 

“Are we ever going to stop?” Gansey asks. Somewhere in the middle of Ohio. 

“No,” Henry and Blue say in sync. Henry keeps his eyes on the road. Blue wraps her arms impossibly tighter around Gansey. Her head knocks against his and it’s not an entirely comfortable feeling, but Gansey presses harder into it anyway. He remembers winding himself tight in Ronan’s embrace, and tries to do the same now in Blue’s arms. It doesn’t really have the same effect. 

“Guys,” Gansey complains. They’re still at least ten hours from Boston, Gansey knows. They can’t drive through the night like this. They haven’t eaten, they haven’t slept, they haven’t so much as stopped for the bathroom. They’ve crossed a timezone and two state lines and they haven’t breaked at all. Soon, they’re going to break. They’re going to get themselves killed if they carry on this way. 

“No,” Henry and Blue say in sync. Blue takes Gansey’s glasses off, like she’s going to really kiss him, like she can distract him that way. If their lips actually touch, she’ll probably succeed. Gansey presses his mouth into a tight line. Blue glares at him. 

“Guys,” Gansey says again, stronger this time. It’s not a command or a demand, but it is a bit begging. It’s plaintive in his desperation for them to be safe. Safer. Safest. As safe as they can be right now. When the ley lines are dead, when Ronan is dying. (No one has told Gansey that he is, but Gansey knows. He just knows.) He gives a final, marginally manipulative, “Please?”

Henry pulls off at the next exit. They stop. 

The journal goes with them into the motel this time. Gansey separates from Blue and Henry long enough to shower, but, even then, there’s a knock on the door every few minutes asking him to check in. They’re all a bit paranoid right now, and Gansey can’t blame them for it. Soon enough, though, the three of them are tucked into bed. Blue and Henry sandwich Gansey between them, playing with his hair and tickling at his eyelashes and holding firm around his waist. 

“Do you think it’s the entire journal?” Blue asks. She sounds exhausted, but she’s forcing her eyes open and she’s talking in a hushed, private volume. “Or just one of the photographs? Or all of the photographs?” 

“It’s definitely the entire journal,” Henry says.

Gansey can’t see Henry from his spot behind him. Gansey wants to rectify that, but he doesn’t want to stop looking at Blue. He wants them both in his sights. Gansey turns onto his back. Blue and Henry move with him, both of their heads resting on his shoulders, his chest. Gansey can see them both, can put his arms around them both. It’s enough to sate the stress within him—for now. 

“But didn’t Declan say it’s about some sort of new experience for the artist?” Blue says. She tucks a piece of hair behind Henry’s ear. “Gansey’s already made a journal like that before. You, though… new camera, new feelings.” 

Henry laughs a little, this soft sound of warmth. “I think you just want me to tell you again that I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” 

“It wouldn’t hurt,” says Blue. She strokes her thumb along the line of Henry’s cheekbone. Henry relaxes a little further into Gansey, melts his weight into him a little more. It’s nice. Gansey likes it. 

Henry says, indulgent and genuine, “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” 

They stop talking for a while after that. There isn’t much to be said, really. Or, possibly, there’s too much to be said. The ley lines, Ronan, wherever Gansey went when he wasn’t quite asleep, sweetmetals, the Voice, the end of the world, Adam, ten hours left to Boston, memories of last November. The Death card at Gansey’s first reading at 300 Fox Way, the Death card at his most recent reading, the reversed Magician and the grave look on the psychic’s face. There’s too much to be said of the fear, the panic, the terror that Blue and Henry just experienced. There’s too much to be said of the confusion, the sleep, the new world Gansey just experienced. There’s nothing but empty reassurances to be shared. 

So, for a while, they don’t talk at all. 

“You doing okay, Gansey dear?” Henry asks. He nudges his knee against the side of Gansey’s leg. A reminder of his presence, or just poking for his attention. 

“Yeah,” Gansey says. He turns his head, rests his cheek against Henry’s hair. He pulls his arm tighter around Blue, so she knocks her nose against his collarbone. 

“You really are, huh?” Henry says, not so much a question as it is an observation. “I guess you’re used to this near death stuff.” 

“Henry,” Blue scolds, but Gansey just laughs. Henry is right, of course. Gansey is used to the threat of death. He’s used to coming close to it and coming right back. It’s left him with scars and a bit of an immortal God complex. It’s left him with enough time to end up here: snuggled between two halves of his heart. 

“It’s okay, Jane,” Gansey says, when he stops laughing. 

Henry kisses Gansey’s jaw in an unnecessary apology. Then, he kisses Blue’s forehead to apologize to her, too. Blue needs it more than Gansey does, and accepts it happily. 

“You guys should sleep,” Gansey says. They both have dark circles under their eyes. Gansey doesn’t have to hear them say it, doesn’t have to ask, to know that they barely slept while he slept for over a week. If their positions were reversed, Gansey wouldn’t have rested until his body physically forced him to. 

“But you shouldn’t,” Blue says. She doesn’t have to say it; Gansey’s already been thinking it. Blue and Henry aren’t going to let Gansey be away from the sweetmetal, but the sweetmetal isn’t going to last forever. It seems a waste to spend its power sleeping like a non-dream. It seems a risk to sleep regularly when the journal or the photographs could run out of energy at any moment, when he could drop out of the vulnerability of sleep and into the vulnerability of the sea of nothingness. It seems unsafe. All of it, everything. 

“I won’t,” Gansey says. He just slept for nine days, anyway. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to sleep again. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to be tired again. 

“Don’t wanna leave you alone,” Blue says. Her words are slurring a little with tiredness. 

Gansey wants to tell her that he wouldn’t be alone, that he would be comforted by their even breathing and even heartbeats against his body. But Henry speaks up first. He says, “We can take it in shifts?” 

Blue agrees. Henry keeps watch first. Blue crashes out in seconds. 

“Henry,” Gansey whispers. “Please just sleep.” 

He doesn’t like this. They still have ten hours to drive to Boston, ten hours that are going to be dangerous if Blue and Henry are deprived of sleep for much longer. They don’t know what’s waiting for them in Boston, but, probably, it’s not going to be good. They need to be ready for it, and Blue and Henry won’t be ready for it if they’re sleeping in interrupted and unfulfilling shifts. No one could survive like that. 

Henry doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t agree either. He’s playing with the sleeve of Blue’s sweater—except it’s not Blue’s sweater, Gansey realizes belatedly. It’s Henry’s Aglionby sweater, with the raven over the heart and the stains embedded deep in the fabric. It’s the sweater that Gansey died in. Blue is wearing it now, asleep and calm and unfettered by that night and that fear. 

“I’ll beg,” Gansey says, “don’t think I won’t.” 

Henry still doesn’t speak. He’s frowning, furrow between his brows and downturn to his lips. Gansey wants to kiss it better. He doesn’t. 

“I’ll wake you up if anything feels strange,” Gansey says. He runs a hand down Henry’s spine and back up again. He rests his palm against the back of his neck, curls his fingers into the hair at the base of his skull. He tugs a little. “Last time, I got really hot and really dizzy and I started thinking about— about a fire. About every fire. I’ll know if it’s going to happen again.” 

Henry hums. He yawns. “Okay,” he says. “But if Blue wakes up before me, you’re taking the blame.”

“Of course,” Gansey says, smiling now. 

Henry takes a little longer to fall asleep than Blue did. He’s got the burden of responsibility on his shoulders, but Gansey slowly rubs it out with fingers massaging into tension points, fingers scratching through his hair, fingers petting down his back. Gansey feels it when Henry does fall asleep. His entire body goes lax, melting into relaxation. 

Gansey breathes a sigh of relief. The Voice whispers in that exhale, a reflection of Gansey’s own feelings of gratitude. For life, even when Ronan is not quite alive. For life, even when he should be asleep, should be dead, should be anything but here. 

You lived. Because of Glendower. You live. 

Gansey stays awake until the sun comes out, until the next day is here and they could be on the road again if Blue and Henry weren’t as exhausted as they are. He stays awake with his arms around both of them, alternating between playing with hair and tracing patterns into skin. He stays awake and he doesn’t return to the sea of nothing, doesn’t return to dreamless black. He stays awake. He stays awake. He stays awake. 

He stays awake. 

Time goes funny as they drive to Boston. 

It’s time spent in the backseat of the Pigeon or it’s time in motel rooms. It’s time divided by Blue behind the wheel or Henry behind the wheel. It’s time divided by leather seats and warm beds. It’s time that hardly feels real, that feels like time in the sea of nothing did. 

When it’s Blue with him in the backseat, they ignore all safety parameters. Blue stretches her legs over Gansey’s lap. Blue lays her head in Gansey’s lap while she naps. Blue tugs Gansey against her chest and strokes lazy circles into his, right above his ley line heart. Blue slips his glasses off, sticks them in Gansey’s pocket, and kisses him. Blue traces her thumbs across Gansey’s eyebrows and down his cheeks and over his jaw. When it’s Blue with him, everything is simple intimacy. When it’s Blue, everything is sticky warmth despite the cold air outside and the terrible heating of the engineless Pigeon. 

When it’s Henry with him in the backseat, they’re a little more cautious of safety and its importance. Seatbelts, at the very least, stay firmly on and not stretched out past the point of functionality. Still, Gansey sits in the middle seat instead of at the opposite window. Henry holds his hand in his lap, plays with Gansey’s fingers and traces his lifeline and grips the jut of his thumb like he can protect it from being broken again. Henry knocks his knee against Gansey’s, legs pressed together at every point. Henry watches videos on his phone and lets Gansey watch with him, one thread of headphones shared between them. Henry lays his head against Gansey’s, hair tickling at each other’s skin. Henry, in his weaker moments, finds Gansey’s pulse point in his wrist and holds two fingers there for seconds, minutes, hours, days. When it’s Henry with him, everything is a bit more subtle and holding back. When it’s Henry with him, everything is quiet understanding and connection that doesn’t need to be more than subdued in nature.

Regardless of which it is, regardless of whether it’s Blue or Henry with him, they never stop touching him. They never stop monitoring him, observing him, watching him, checking on him. It’s a constant feedback loop of Gansey is okay, Gansey is awake, Gansey is alive. It could be annoying except that it isn’t. It’s comforting and calming and consoling. Gansey can’t begrudge them of this worry, and he wouldn’t want to. It’s nice to be cared for. 

Gansey calls Adam on the second day. Or possibly the third day. The fourth? The first? He doesn’t know anymore. Gansey calls Adam. Adam doesn’t answer. There’s nothing to say, though, so Gansey leaves the voicemail blank. It beeps for him to speak and all he does is breathe, breathe, breathe. He hangs up. He doesn’t shut his phone off, even though part of him—the Cabeswater, Ronan part?—wants to. 

Blue, from Henry’s phone, calls Declan at some point. (They decided he was more likely to answer Henry’s number than Gansey’s.) Unlike the call to Adam, this one goes through. Blue—who had hardly spoken to Declan before this week, but who has seemingly built up some sort of rapport with him now—finally informs Declan that Gansey is awake, that they have a sweetmetal. She asks about the average lifetime of a sweetmetal. Declan says something that makes Blue say, “absolutely not.” They hang up not long after that. 

Someone named Jordan calls, some time after Blue called Declan. It’s late at night and they’re looking for their next motel and she asks to speak to Gansey. Gansey agrees to take the phone. He tries to plaster on his stranger voice, his Virginia charm, his mask. He fails as soon as he hears Jordan’s British accent and her apologies on behalf of Declan—what exactly she’s apologizing for Gansey doesn’t know, maybe just Declan’s existence, maybe just his Declanisms. Declanness. Jordan has something very important to say: she’s a dream who, for as long as the ley line has been shut down, hasn’t slept—well, she’s slept normally. But she hasn’t slept. She tells Gansey that, for her, creating art is a sweetmetal. She tells Gansey to keep working on his. So, in the low light of the Pigeon and spread out streetlights, Gansey prints photographs and adds them to the pages of the journal. He feels more awake when he does.

Days pass just like that. Pigeon, motel rooms, phone calls, journal entries, Blue and Henry. And also… the Voice. It’s too quiet for Gansey to understand, but it’s there. At the back of his mind, at the back end of every day. 

It’s getting louder. 

You know what you want. 

The Voice is getting louder. Its presence in Gansey’s mind is growing, growing, growing. Gansey understands, now, that the Voice’s native language is thought. Its communication is based in subconscious and intention and demand. It is never aloud, it is never tentative, it is never asking. It is a whisper in Gansey’s own internal monologue, a whisper that is mounting towards a scream. 

I know what you want. 

Gansey has lived his first death over and over and over. In his circular lifetime, it all loops back to that moment on the ley line, to that point of darkness. Gansey has replayed the words of the voice—You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not—during every sleepless night, every buzzing of a wasp, every quiet moment when the threads of adventure ran cold. And yet, Gansey can’t remember if he heard the voice aloud, or if he heard the Voice in his head. 

You and I are the same. 

You want answers. 

I want answers. 

You can give me answers. 

I can give you answers. 

That’s what the search for Glendower was always about: answers and understanding and the reassuring notion that someone else had it figured out. Gansey had a keen eye for the mystic magic of the world, but he didn’t have the scope to understand it. He could find things that no one else could, but he couldn’t make them matter. He had no mystic magic of his own, and yet he does now. Now, he has Cabeswater. Now, he has three lives. He wants to know why. Why was he saved, why did Cabeswater die for him. He wants to know what the voice was, what the Voice is. Gansey wants to understand. Gansey wants answers. 

The world is ending. 

Time is running out for you. 

Make way, make way. 

The world is ending. 

I can show you. 

If you let me in, you will be the King of Time. You will see the future. 

Gansey has always wished that he had psychic ability. If he did, it might explain everything. It might explain why he was worthy of being saved by the ley line at ten years old when he had never done anything to prove that he is worthy. He still hasn’t proved himself worthy. If he had eyes for the future, it might have explained everything, but Gansey doesn’t have eyes for more than this second. Even now, with Cabeswater and Gansey tangled as one. Even now, as Gansey travels across timelines, the beyond still escapes him. Cabeswater travels time in a circle—past, present, and future all the same—but, now that Cabeswater is diluted down to human, Gansey can only really discern past and present. The future is still just out of reach. The future is a mystery to him, and, if ever there was time to want it more, this is it. 

The world is ending. Ronan is dying. The world is ending. Adam isn’t answering his phone. The world is ending. Blue and Henry are at risk. The world is ending. Sleep is coming for Gansey.

The world is ending. 

Gansey has stopped the end of the world before. He died a second time—a life for a ley line, a sacrifice for a demon. Gansey has stopped the end of the world before, and he wants to do it again. No, he doesn’t want to do it again. He wants to give in. He wants the Voice to have the answers. He wants the Voice to have the power. He wants the Voice to explain this, to take care of this, to fix this. 

He wants to let the Voice in. 

King of Time, Raven King. 

Let me in. 

Gansey’s heart gives a disastrous sort of tug. He passes out in the backseat of the Pigeon. 

Gansey is back in Cabeswater. 

Everything is alive, alive. The ancient woods sprawl around him and encircle him, massive oak trees and fawning ash trees. Plants creep through the cracks of stone slabs and moss grows on every surface like a blanket keeping the forest warm. Humidity hangs in the air like a physical presence, scenting the space with growth and moisture and home. Light shines dappled and golden through leaves and branches and roots. Everything is alive, alive. 

He did not let the Voice in, Gansey knows at once—instinctively. Cabeswater pulled him away before hands could shake, before dotted lines could be signed, before deals could go through. Cabeswater tugged and Gansey fell into a world that is more dream than reality, less wake than sleep. 

The nightmare tree stands before Gansey. It’s more whole than the last time Gansey saw it, and yet it is still carved with a cavity that will never be filled. It’s less decaying than the last time Gansey saw it, and yet the bark inside is black and wet and uneven. Its survival is as miraculous as Gansey remembers it to be. 

The wind pushes at Gansey’s back. It’s guiding him forward, forward, forward. Into the nightmare tree. And Gansey, who trusts this forest to care for him—how could he not, when it died for him?—lets the breeze guide him through the jagged opening and into the heart of the nightmare tree. 

Gansey sees, first, his own memories. Adam taken over by the demon with his hands around Ronan’s throat, the Dittley cave and the horrible brown sweater, Adam losing hours of time as he walks aimlessly along the side of the road, the tomb of Glendower and the skeleton within. Gansey sees the reversed Magician on the lace covered table. He sees, but doesn’t hear, the psychic’s mouth taking on the shape of words that Gansey can only understand because he’s heard them before: “Trust your page and your knight and yourself, but do not trust everyone. There are things at play that you do not understand. There is an end coming. Yes, the end is near." Gansey sees, next, the Voice. It’s a non-shadow pretending to be a shadow. It’s jagged lines and fire so hot it burns black. It’s huge and hateful and carved in patterns that are delicate in their evil. It’s terrifying and it’s real and it’s not what Gansey thought it was. It’s a masquerade, it’s something bad pretending to be something good. It’s not to be trusted.

It’s a nightmare, but in the way that Ronan’s nightmares are nightmares. It’s real. 

Gansey stumbles out of the tree’s cavern and to his knees. His hands meet the ground of Cabeswater, and its grass and moss and roots push through the earth to wrap around his fingers, his wrists, his arms. They embrace and they comfort. They speak in a language that is not Latin, but could be: “I’m sorry.”

Gansey has never been able to understand this language of dreams before, but Cabeswater can understand, and Cabeswater is Gansey now. So, now, Gansey can understand too. 

“Why did you save me?” Gansey asks. He can’t tell if he’s speaking in English or not. He can’t tell if he opens his mouth or if his words are trapped inside his own head, inside the language of thought. “If that thing wasn’t the voice I heard, then what was? Please, Cabeswater. Please.” 

“Once more,” Cabeswater tells him. Its grass and moss and roots recede from his arms, his wrists, his fingers. They sink back into the earth and Gansey feels distinctly untethered. Like he could stray just like this, forever, through every path of infinity and every winding eternity. “Once more,” Cabeswater repeats. 

Gansey pushes himself to shaky standing. His legs feel like jelly, his knees knock together. The gentle wind guides Gansey forward again. He ducks into the cavity of the nightmare tree once more, once more, once more. 

Gansey sees, third, his own memories. Monmouth Manufacturing and the pristine second bedroom, Raven Day and an assembly led by a girl with familiar blonde hair and a familiar elfin mouth and familiar bags under cheery eyes and familiar large ears, a shattering snow globe and glitter, a red Mustang on the edge of Cabeswater and the word REMEMBERED traced into its dusty windshield. Gansey sees a body discovered. Gansey sees an Aglionby sweater over skeletal bones. Gansey sees a driver’s license and a familiar elfin mouth smiling back at him. Gansey sees, last, his friend Noah Czerny standing before him. This is a memory forgotten and a memory not yet created. This is a memory in motion. 

It’s a nightmare in the same way that Ronan’s nightmares are. It’s real. It’s not actually very nightmarish at all.

“Noah,” Gansey says. 

More. This is Noah as Gansey has never known him. This is Noah as something more, something alive, something more. This is Noah. As impossibly as Gansey had gone months without realizing his friend was dead and ghostly, Gansey has gone months forgetting him. 

He’s remembering now. 

“Gansey,” Noah says. He’s smiling with all his teeth. There’s no smudge beneath his eye. 

“It was you,” Gansey says. “Wasn’t it?” 

“You will live because of Glendower,” Noah says, and there it is. A voice aloud, not a voice of thought. A voice that Gansey has lived more than any other memory, and yet a voice that he had never recognized. He recognizes it now. “Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.” 

Gansey feels tears running down his cheeks, but he doesn’t move to wipe them away. He doesn’t move at all, in case this moment disappears. In case Noah disappears. Noah moves instead, Noah wipes the tears instead. 

“I didn’t live because of Glendower,” Gansey says. Because it’s always been true. Glendower has always been dead; Noah has only sometimes been dead. “I lived because of you, didn’t I?” 

“Cabeswater, me, the Raven King,” Noah says, “does it matter?” 

Gansey supposes it doesn’t. How strange. 

“What now?” he asks Noah. 

“You wake up. You save Ronan, you tell the Voice to piss up a rope, you save the world. You live,” Noah says. His smile is wistful. And none of this is real, but it is. Noah isn’t really here, but he is. He repeats, sadly, “You live. Do not be so afraid that you don’t.”

“Will I forget you again?” Gansey asks. He doesn’t know how he can resist the pull of the Voice if he does. He doesn’t know how he can ever wake up, how he can ever choose to leave, if it means forgetting—leaving—Noah Czerny again. 

“I don’t think so,” Noah says. He shrugs, like it doesn’t bother him either way. Gansey doesn’t understand him at all; Gansey understands him perfectly. Noah says, “You live, Gansey. Don’t throw it away.” 

Gansey blinks, and he’s back in the cavity of the nightmare tree. It shrinks around him, a final, parting hug from Cabeswater. Then, he wakes up. 

They’re pulled over on the side of the road when Gansey comes to and, once more, Henry and Blue are hovering around him, above him. Angels. His magician and his knight. Gansey comes to with nightwash down his nose, down his eyes, down his ears. He’s sobbing and shaking and sweating. Gansey, at once, pushes past Blue and Henry and out of the Pigeon. He collapses to his knees on the side of the road. It’s not the comfort of Cabeswater, it’s the frozen grass of somewhere in New England, but it’s enough. Gansey fists his hands in the ground, feels the earth and the pulse of life within his grasp—within him. All around, everywhere. 

Blue and Henry surround him. On either side, they crouch beside him. They wrap arms around his frame and rest chins against shoulders and put hands on knees. They cradle him close like the nightmare tree and its final damp embrace. 

Noah, Gansey thinks. He remembers, he remembers, he remembers. 

The Voice, Gansey thinks. He doesn’t want to ever hear it again. He feels sick with the knowledge of its corruption, with its using of Gansey’s memory and lack of memory of Noah. He almost retches, with the notion of how close Gansey came to giving in, to becoming psychic with the help of the Voice. Who knows what that would’ve done to Gansey, who knows how that could have destroyed the world. Gansey has been so weak. 

He’s weaker now. Rivulets of nothing are drying on his face and his neck and his tongue. It’s a bitter, acrid, poisonous flavor of rotting and death and decay. He’s weaker now. He’s held up and together only by Blue and by Henry. He’s sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. It’s a cleanse to cry real saltwater tears, tears of something instead of tears of nothing, nothing, nothing. His tears wash black from his skin as he cries. He brings color back to his pallored cheeks as he aches with the pain of life, life, life. 

Don’t throw it away. 

“You’re okay,” Blue whispers in his ear. Her accent is so thick that it becomes one word, one soothing balm to all his hurt. “You’re okay.” 

“We love you,” Henry whispers into his throat, lips brushing skin, like he can communicate it through touch instead of language. His hands gently wiping under Gansey’s eyes—a mirror of Noah—proves as much. “I love you.” 

They stay like that for a long time: crouched on the side of the road, curved together into one intertwined entity, whispering secrets and confessions into each other’s skin. Eventually, though, Gansey’s knees start to burn with the position and he starts to crave water with the dryness of nothing on tongue. Then, he shifts and, instinctively, Blue and Henry help him. They move him back into the car, legs swung outward still, feet still planted in the earth. Henry gets him water and Blue cleans up his face. They don’t speak yet. They just clean him up and support his chin as he gulps down water like he’s greedy for it—somehow, the taste of the water is the same as the taste of the air of Cabeswater. 

“What happened?” Blue asks. She’s smiling, faintly and sadly, when she adds, “You scared the hell out of me. Us.” 

“I can’t do specifics,” Gansey says. Because he knows, without being told, that he can’t tell them about Noah. They don’t travel time like he does, and so he can not share this circular revelation. Gansey gets to know about Noah, but he doesn’t get to share his knowledge. That is his curse; that is his blessing. 

“Tell us what you can then, love,” Blue says. Having grown up at 300 Fox Way, she has no reason not to give in to his parameters at once. Gansey is grateful. 

Gansey tells them about the Voice, for the first time since he first heard it. Blue scolds him a little, for keeping it secret as long as he did. Gansey feels awful; he can’t explain or justify his decision of confidentiality, but he does apologize and Blue does accept. Gansey tells them that he almost let the Voice in—Blue gasps and starts scolding him again; Henry tells her to let him finish—and Gansey tells them about Cabeswater. The dream that really was just a dream this time; a lucid dream where awareness was all Gansey’s, but a dream all the same. The place Gansey went that exists nowhere but inside himself, inside his subconscious. The nightmare tree and the lacy shape of the Voice’s true form. He doesn’t tell them about Noah, but he tells them enough. He doesn’t do specifics, but he does the truth. 

At the end, Blue says, “We need to get to Boston.” 

Henry says, “I’ll drive.” 

Gansey feels it when the ley lines come back on. They’re still fifteen minutes out from Boston, too far away to contribute, to help, to do anything. All they can do is keep driving, keep hoping. Gansey feels it when the earth comes to life beneath him again. It’s a mounting, cresting wave of energy that’s never going to break, that’s never going to die on the shore line. The invisibly straight ley lines are brought back to life, and it should have been impossible. Which means it’s Ronan who has brought them back. Which means that Ronan is alive. For now, for now, for now. 

It’s not over yet, but the power has shifted. It’s not over yet, but the ley lines are back and sleep no longer tugs at Gansey like a child tugging at his leg, his hands. It’s not over yet, so they keep driving towards Boston. Forward, forward, forward. Until the city comes into view. 

They’re too late. 

Boston is on fire. 

The world is burning, the world is ending. 

They’re late, but they’re not too late. Boston is on fire, but the buildings aren’t burning. The trees aren’t burning. The people aren’t burning. All that’s burning in as an invisible explosion of sound that will never be heard. The decibels of destruction are consumed more quickly than they can destroy the city and its non-dreamers and dreams. The world is burning, but it isn’t ending. 

As Henry drives through the streets of Boston, the fire goes out. It’s distinguished by a magic that can only be dreamt into being, which means the ley lines are still online, which means Ronan is still alive. Alive. Alive. 

Having been deprived of it for so long, Gansey expects the strength of the Boston ley line to consume him. He expects repeats of Sedona and fraying thoughts of stay and need. But there’s none of that. There’s just the steady beat of his ley line heart. Tree branches curve around the organ like a protective shell—like armor, like two pieces fighting together instead of fighting each other. There’s just Cabeswater and Gansey settling into each other, getting used to each other, remembering each other. Becoming one. 

Boston isn’t on fire anymore. The world isn’t ending. They’re late—too late to help—but the world survives anyway. Without them, with Ronan. Alive, alive, alive. The world is alive, his friends are alive, Gansey is alive. 

It doesn’t take long to find the source of the fire and the chaos at the Charlotte Club. Unfortunately, the building is surrounded by sirens and cop cars. Unfortunately—or, perhaps, fortunately, in the sake of no arrests and no emergency medics being needed—their friends aren’t there. And so, from the Charlotte Club, they keep looking. Henry drives through the crowded streets of Boston until they spot a crowd of people, familiar and unfamiliar alike, under the non-existent shade of a barren tree in a nearby park. Henry does a terrible job street parking the Pigeon—he nearly runs over a stray cat—and then they’re out of the Camaro and onto the grass and catapulting towards Ronan, towards Adam, towards two identical strangers. Each of them is bloodied and raw and exhausted, strangers and neighbors alike.  

Ronan goes straight for Gansey. He’s human again. Or, at least, as human as he’s ever been. And so, this time, when he gathers Gansey close, his arms are actually arms. (One of his arms has a new tattoo; Gansey can feel the power projecting from it where they touch.) He’s bigger than Gansey remembers him being, and yet smaller than he could have ever been in the sea of nothing. Ronan squeezes him tight, tight, tight. Like he’s trying to shrink Gansey again, like he’s trying to keep him from straying—Gansey doesn’t think he needs his help anymore, at least not as much as he used to, but he doesn’t tell Ronan that. He lets Ronan squeeze him tight, and, in turn, he squeezes back. 

“You asshole,” Ronan whispers. His breath is stale and ticklish against Gansey’s skin. His words should be venomous in their color. His tone should be vitriolic in its rainbow cursing. But, as is usually the case with Ronan, he’s hardly saying what he means. As is usually the case with Ronan, his language is terrible, but his meaning is softer, subtler. His meaning, Gansey thinks, lies in abandon. 

“I didn’t mean to leave,” Gansey whispers back, guilt clawing and scratching within himself. Gansey wonders if they’re speaking English, or if perhaps this is the language of trees and dreams and thought-based entities. It hardly matters. What matters is: “But I came back. Just like I promised.” 

Ronan stops hugging him. He doesn’t go far, but he drops his arms. He’s reached his vulnerability quotient for the day, Gansey figures. Ronan proves him right by punching him in the shoulder. He says, correcting Gansey’s assumption, “That’s not why you’re an ass. You’re an ass because you didn’t tell me about Cheng.” Then, for good measure, he tacks on, “Asshole.” 

Gansey stammers. He blinks. Gansey was so terrified of telling Ronan before, but, now, he just laughs. Something about realizing his friend is a Godlike entity, something about realizing he’s a—weaker, less impressive—Godlike entity makes those worries seem ridiculous in their vanity. Trivial. Inconsequential. Gansey can only say, “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Seriously?” 

“I had to find out by watching him kiss you through your sweetmetal,” Ronan exclaims, arms thrown out and eyes cold as ice. It’s such a Ronan gesture. Gansey has missed him so much. “It was fucking traumatic.” 

And there’s the untoward comment Adam had warned Gansey of, but it doesn’t hurt like Gansey expected it to. If anything, it warms and heals and makes Gansey laugh a little more. He asks, “Sorry, did you say: through my sweetmetal? You watched through my sweetmetal?” 

“It’s a long story,” Ronan says, waving him off. “I’ll tell it to you some other time. When I haven’t just single handedly stopped the apocalypse.” 

Badass, Gansey thinks, but his opinion isn’t shared. At once, several voices shout out an indignant, “Single handedly?” Ronan turns to argue with a set of women Gansey doesn’t know yet, but that he’s sure he will soon enough. For now, he avoids introductions. For now, Gansey searches for familiarity in the crowd, and finds it in the approaching shape of Adam Parrish. 

Adam holds out his fist to Gansey. Gansey bumps his knuckles against his. 

Time passes steadily forward as reunions are held and celebrations of survival are felt. Eventually, the Henrietta occupants become one group instead of several smaller ones, gathered in a tight circle under a tree six blocks down from the Charlotte Club. They become one being then, one intertwined entity: Gansey, Adam, Blue, Ronan, Henry. The bare tree branches rustle overhead, as if there are leaves there that aren’t actually there. Gansey thinks of Noah. Gansey thinks: remembered. 

“Where to now?” Adam asks. His accent is back, dragging out his vowels like the scenic route through mountain roads. 

“Henrietta,” says Henry, like his mouth was made with only three things in mind: saying that word, kissing Gansey, kissing Blue. 

“Home,” Gansey says. 

In the end, the road-trip is made up of three parts instead of four. In the end, the year is cut short, seven months instead of twelve. In the end, it’s not perfect, but it is perfect. It’s Gansey in the driver’s seat, Blue in the backseat, Henry in the passenger seat. It’s the three of them in a car dreamt by Ronan, in a car Adam has taken to calling the Pigeon—an in-joke that makes Gansey swell with pride, with happiness every time he hears it. It’s the drive back to Henrietta as three, as one. It’s ending, but it’s not the end.