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"Well, this isn’t frustrating at all," Ada a tape ed out to two feet, six inches, and noafter"

"Perfect for ic value"

"How about this?" Blue, out in the hall, touched the petal of a perfect blue lily It was one of a dozen gathered into a bouquet on the hall table Ronan had never given ht to the flowers, but when he did, he’d always assumed they were fake, as the vase they were displayed in had never contained water The white and blue lilies were oversized and spidery with frothy golden sta he’d seen elsewhere He should’ve known, in retrospect Adam pinched off a bud and turned the moist end of the stem to the other two boys "They’re alive"

This was the sort of thing that Gansey couldn’t resist, and so Ada roolanced over his shoulder, Gansey stood with one of the blosso hurateful and wistful in his face as he gazed at the flower It was a strangely deferential expression

Sorier He turned quickly away before Gansey could catch his eye In the pale gray dining roo a wooden mask from a hook on the wall It was carved of a smooth, dark wood and looked like a cheap tourist souvenir The eye holes were round and surprised, the h for lots of teeth Ronan hurled hih the air

"No"

The mask clattered to the floor Adaripped his wrist Ronan could feel his own heart pounding and, in Adam’s wrist, Adam’s

At once, he released hi it back on the wall, but his pulse didn’t calm He didn’t look at Ada Adam not to do It was possible that his father’s version of the mask was entirely harmless It was possible that it only became deadly in Ronan’s head

Suddenly, he couldn’t stand it, any of it, his father’s dreams, his childhood home, his own skin

He punched the wall His knuckles bit plaster, and the plaster bit back He felt the er in the wall, but it hadn’t cracked "Oh, co to break your hand?"

"What was that?" Gansey called from the other rooain And then he kicked one of the dining room chairs He hurled a tall basket full of recorders and penny whistles against the wall Tore a handful of sry before, but noas nothing Just knuckles and sparks of pain

Abruptly, his arht on it, and his expression, two inches away fro and old More old than young

"Ronan Lynch," he said It was the voice Ronan couldn’t not listen to It was sure in every way that Ronan was not "Stop this right now Go see your " Gansey held Ronan’s ar, and then he dropped it and turned to Ada to stand there?"

"Yeah," replied Adam

"Decent of you," Gansey said

There was no heat in Ada at all, but she waited at the doorway until Ronan joined her And then, as the other two began to tidy the dining roo roo roo that didn’t see anywhere else Three mismatched leather chairs faced one another on the uneven wood floor -- that was thesitting part Tall, thin crockery held uo sticks lined the walls Rugs ht upholstery scrolls in a corner; one of them was marked with a sticky note that said not this one in Niall’s handwriting A strange iron chandelier, re in the center of the room Niall had probably drea in the corners, half light fixture, half potted plants, were drea here was Only now that Ronan had been away from home could he see how full of dreams it was

And there, in the middle of it, was his beautiful mother She had a silent audience of catheters and IVs and feeding tubes -- all of the things that ho She was a sedentary queen froolden hair swept away froently closed She looked nothing like her charismatic husband, her troubled sons

Ronan walked directly up to her, close enough to see that she had not changed a bit since the last tih his breath moved the fine hairs around her temples, she didn’t react to her son’s presence

Her chest rose and fell Her eyes stayed closed

Non mortem, somni fratrem Not death, but his brother, sleep Blue whispered, "Just like the other ani, really, if he thought about it -- burrowed into his and creatures from Niall Lynch’s dreams, and his ht it ell past time they took Ronan to her fa Drea, she biked down to Mon and proposed her idea There was silence, and then:

"No," Ronan said

"Excuse "

Gansey, lying on the floor beside his long aerial printout of the ley line, didn’t look up "Ronan, don’t be difficult"

"I’"

Blue said, "It’s not the dentist"