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Time was a circle, a rut, a worn tape Ronan never tired of playing

The voices whispered to hiet the glasses!"

Ronan followed her gaze Between the flowers and broken

vines and fallen leaves was a glealasses looked back at him, eyeless He ran his thued his breath over the tinted lenses He did it until he could feel even the etched circle of the tiny screw in the earpiece Dreairl She looked afraid She always looked afraid, these days The world was a scary place

She said: "Take ht, The Gray Man drea stabbed

At first he felt each individual wound Particularly that first one He was unbroken and entire, and then that wholeness was stolen by that thief, the knife So that piercing was the worst A half inch above his left collarbone, pinning hiain, but closer to the knob of his shoulder, glancing off his collarbone And then two inches below his belly button The word gut was a verb and a noun Another cut and another cut Slippery

Then the Gray Man was the assailant The hilt of the knife was ridged and per this piece of meat for a lifetime He’d been born when it started and he’d die when he was done It was the bite that kept him alive: the moment the blade parted a new inch of skin The resistance and then nothing Catch and release

Then the Gray Man was the knife He was a blade in the air, gasping, and then he was a weapon inside, holding his breath He was voracious, chewing, never satisfied Hunger was a species, and he was the best of that kind

The Gray Man opened his eyes

He looked at the clock

He rolled over and went back to sleep

That night, Adam didn’t dream

Curled on the mattress, he covered his face with his summerhot arm Sometimes, if he blocked his mouth and nose, just this side of suffocation, sleep would overthrow hiret and the ness, the deadness, of the wo in the air of the rooh to think of home -- It’s not home, it was never home, those people didn’t exist, and if they did, they were nothing to you -- and to think of Blue’s face when he lost his teh to recall precisely the smell of the forest as he sacrificed hi bad decisions for his entire life If he’d been a bad decision, himself, even before he was born

He wished sulionby he could turn over his papers to see the grades, concrete proof of his success at soh to think of the invitation froht be an internship in there Ada? He’d said no for so long that he didn’t knohen to say yes

And maybe , a tiny, watchful part of hisanyway When they sernails

He hated the careful way Gansey had asked hi, just like Adam had learned to tiptoe around his father He needed a reset button Just push the reset button on Adaain

He didn’t sleep and when he did, he didn’t drea school suht a plate full of sh her bedroom Jimi,

Orla’s mother, was as tall as Orla, but several tirace, too, which was to say that she knocked her hips into every piece of furniture in Blue’s roos like "mother lover!" and "fasten it all" They sounded worse than real sords

Blue lifted her bleary eyes fro fro," Jimi answered She held the plate in front of the canvas trees Blue had stuck to her walls and blew on the bound herbs to direct the sy"

The terrible woman was Neeve, Blue’s half aunt, who had disappeared earlier that year after practicing blackthe sy Personally, Blue had always thought there ood side than by setting it on fire

Now Jie in Blue’s face "Sacred sive her so up "I think I’wort in that, is there? Because I have things to do!"

Jiwort improved her clairvoyance She didn’t see affects Sullenly, sounding just like Orla, she said, "No, your mother wouldn’t let me"

Blue silently thanked herover, and the last thing she wanted was to be responsible for getting theht with ht be ie off She wondered if he was ever going to say sorry