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The second secret was perfect in its concealment Ronan did not say it Ronan did not think it He never put lyrics to the second secret, the one he kept froround

And then there was this: three years later, Ronan drea of his friend Richard C Gansey III’s car Gansey trusted his, except for weapons Never eapons and never with this, not Gansey’s hell-tinged ’73 Ca hours, Ronan never got any farther than the passenger seat When Gansey left town, he took the keys with him

But in Ronan’s dream, Gansey was not there and the Camaro was The car was poised on the sloped corner of an abandoned parking lot, hosted blue in the distance Ronan’s hand closed around the driver’s side door handle He tried his grip It was a drea to the idea of opening the door That was all right Ronan sank into the driver’s seat Thelot were a dreaasoline and vinyl and carpet and years whirring against one another

The keys are in it, Ronan thought

And they were

The keys dangled frothem in his ain, and then he closed his pale of the fob; the coldand the trunk key; the thin, sharp proers

Then he woke up

When he opened his hand, the keys lay in his palm Dream to reality

This was his third secret

1

Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys

"Jane!" The shout cah Jane was not her real name "Hurry up!"

As the only non-clairvoyant in a very psychic faain, and each time it said she would kill her true love if she tried to kiss him Moreover, it had been foretold this was the year she’d fall in love And both Blue and her clairvoyant half-aunt Neeve had seen one of the boys walking along the invisible corpse road this April, which meant he was supposed to die in the next twelve months It all added up to a fearful equation

At the moment, that particular boy, Richard Campbell Gansey III, looked pretty unkillable In the hureen hill, an ardently yellow polo shirt flapped against his chest and a pair of khaki shorts slapped his gloriously tanned legs Boys like hiot bronzed and installed outside public libraries He held a hand toward Blue as she cliesture that looked less like encourage air traffic

" Jane You’ve got to see this!" His voice was full of the honeybaked accent of old Virginia ered up the hill, telescope on her shoulder, she er level: Aalloped down the hill to snatch the telescope from her

"This isn’t that heavy," he told her, and strode back the way he’d come

She did not think she was in love with him She hadn’t been in love before, but she was still pretty sure she’d be able to tell Earlier in the year, she had had a vision of kissing him, and she could still picture that quite easily But the sensible part of Blue, which was usually the only part of her, thought that hada nice ht it could tell her who to fall for, fate had another thing coht you hadwhen you say that doesn’t make it funny," Blue said

As the latest step in his quest to find the Welsh king Owen Glendower, Gansey had been requesting hiking permission from local landowners Each lot crossed the Henrietta ley line -- an invisible, perfectly straight energy line that connected spiritually significant places-- and circled Cabeswater, a mystical forest that straddled it Gansey was certain that Glendoas hidden so away the centuries Whoever woke the king was supposed to be granted a favor -- so that had been on Blue’s mind recently It seemed to her that Gansey was the only one who really needed it Not that Gansey kneas supposed to be dead in a few months And not that she was about to tell hiht, surely we can save Gansey

The steep clirassy crest that arched above the forested foothills Far, far beloas Henrietta, Virginia The toas flanked by pastures dotted with farmhouses and cattle, as s but the soaring blue reen and shi at the scenery They stood in a close circle: Ada; and Ronan Lynch, ferocious and dark On Ronan’s tattooed shoulder perched his pet raven, Chainsaw Although her grip was careful, there were finely drawn lines from her claws on either side of the strap of his blackRonan held in his hands Gansey cavalierly tossed the telescope into the buoyant field grass and joined them

Ada hers for a ued Blue They were not quite conventionally handso He had the typical Henrietta prominent cheekbones and deepset eyes, but his version of them was more delicate It made hi this one, Fate , she thought ferociously Not Richard Gansey

III You can’t tell lided over her bare elbow The touch was a whisper in a language she didn’t speak very well

"Open it up," he ordered Ronan His voice was dubious

"Doubting Thomas," Ronan sneered, but without much vitriol The tiny ers It was formed of pure white, featureless plastic, al He opened the battery hatch on the bottom It was empty