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Declan said nothing The Gray Man gave him some tihts slower

When Declan reh He pressed hard enough that the boy gasped "Here, you’d die in five minutes Of course, I don’t need to shoot you for that The point of your uone in fivefor it in three"

Declan closed his eyes One of them, anyway The left eye was already swollen most of the way shut

"I don’t know," he said eventually His voice sounded full of sleep "I don’t knohat that is"

"Lies are for your politicians," the Gray Man said, without vehemence He just wanted Declan to know that he knew about his life, his internship He wanted him to know that he’d done his research "I knohere your brothers are right now I knohere your irlfriend Are we clear?"

"I don’t knohere it is" Declan hesitated "That’s the truth I don’t knohere it is I just know it"

"Here is the plan" The Gray Man stood up "You’re going to find that thing for ive it to ive it to you?"

"I don’t think you understand I ah that keeps you up at night"

Declan asked, "Did you kill my father?"

"Niall Lynch" The Gray Man tried the words out in his mouth In his opinion, Niall Lynch was a pretty lousy father, getting hi his sons to live in a place where they propped the security doors open The world, he felt, was full of bad fathers "He asked me that question, too"

Declan Lynch exhaled unevenly: half a breath, and then the other half Now, the Gray Man could see, he was finally afraid

"Okay," Declan said "I’ll find it Then you’ll leave us alone All of you"

The Gray Man set the pistol back in its drawer and pushed it closed He checked his watch He had twenty rade to a midsize He hated compact cars nearly as much as he hated public transportation "Yes"

"Okay," Declan said again

The Gray Man withdrew fro the door partway It wouldn’t quite close right; he had es when he’d entered He was sure there was an endowes

He paused, watching through the crack of the door

There was still more to learn fro happened Declan lay there bleeding and crooked Then the fingers of his right hand crabbed across the ground to where his cell phone had fallen He didn’t i slowness -- his shoulder was almost certainly dislocated -- he punched in another nu on the opposite bed It was, the Gray Man knew already, the bed that belonged to Declan’s youngest brother, Matthew The ringtone was an Iglu & Hartly song that the Gray Man knew but couldn’t condone The Gray Man already knehere Matthew Lynch was: floating in a boat on the river with some local boys Like his older brother, never content to be alone

Declan let his youngest brother’s phone ring for longer than it needed to, his eyes closed Finally, he pressed end and dialed another number It still wasn’t 9-1-1 Whoever it was didn’t pick up And whoever it was hter The Gray Man could hear the tinny sound of the phone ringing and ringing, then a brief voicemail that he couldn’t catch

Declan Lynch closed his eyes and breathed, "Ronan, where the hell are you?"

3

The proble to be heard over the engine "If Glendower really could be found just walking along the ley line, I don’t see hoouldn’t have already been found in the past few hundred years"

They were headed back to Henrietta in the Pig, Gansey’s furiously orange-red ancient Camaro Gansey drove, because when it was the Camaro, he always drove And the conversation was about Glendower, because when you ith Gansey, the conversation was almost always about Glendower