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Gansey jerked his arain his eyes darted down the hall and back "You should look at yourself in the mirror"

Adam didn’t

"We do this, we do it as equals," Adalanced over his shoulder, furtive His mouth made the shh shape, but not the sound

"Oh, what?" Adam demanded "You’re afraid so isn’t perfect in the land of Dick Gansey? A dose of reality could only help those people!" With a sudden twist, he swept all of the figurines from the Queen Anne table Foxes in breeches and terriers seized inand diseased s, folks!" "Ada m --"

"I don’t need your wisdoot into Aglionby without you I got Blue without you I woke the ley line without you I won’t take your pity" Now, finally, Gansey was silenced There was so very remote about his eyes, or the set of his lips, or the lift of his chin He didn’t say anything else He just gave a tiny shake to the sleeve Ada the wrinkles fall out His eyebroere pulled together as if the action requiredin the hall

Next to Ada for, but there was no sound

37

This was the dreaer seat of Joseph Kavinsky’s Mitsubishi, the odor of a crash clinging to Ronan’s clothing, the white dash lights carving

Kavinsky a gaunt and wild face, foully seductive lyrics spitting from the speakers, the vein-covered peaks of Kavinsky’s knuckles on the gearshift between them The smell in the car eet and unfaht lionby Even the feel of the racing seats was unfas into the very depths of the car like a trap Every bump in the road transferred directly to Ronan’s bones, sharp and immediate A touch of the wheel and they darted one way or another It was like a car built to both feed on and produce anxiety

Ronan didn’t know if he loved it or hated it

They didn’t speak Ronan didn’t knohat he would say anyway It felt like anything could happen All of his secrets felt dangerously close to the surface

Kavinsky drove out of Henrietta, past Deering, into nowhere The road turned from four lanes to two and pure black trees pressed out the dull black sky overhead Ronan’s palears as he snaked along the back roads Every tiear, hewhen he did?

"My eyes are up here, sweetheart," Kavinsky said

With a dismissive noise, Ronan lay his head back in the seat and looked out into the night He could tell where they were now; they were nearly to the fairground where the substance party had been Tonight the great floodlights were dark; the only evidence of the fairground hen the headlights swept over the bunting They were only in the light for a s, and then there was nothing but brush as Kavinsky pulled onto an overgrown gravel track before the fairground

A few yards in, Kavinsky stopped He looked at Ronan "I knohat you are"

It was like after the crash After waking fro back at hiave way to a lihts, Ronan saw another white car parked up ahead As they pulled closer, the lights illue spoiler on the trunk, and then revealed a portion of a knife graphic on the side It was another Mitsubishi For a ht be the old one, soht But then the headlights swung to another car parked beside it This second car was also white with a large spoiler Another Mitsubishi A knife graphic peeked around the shadowed side

Kavinsky pulled forward another few feet It brought a third car into focus A white Mitsubishi They kept creeping forward, field grass rustling against the low bumper Another Mitsubishi Another Another

"Goldfish," Kavinsky said

It wouldn’t be the same

But these were the same Dozens upon dozens-- now Ronan saw that the Mitsubishis were parked at least two deep -- of identical cars Only they were not quite identical The longer Ronan looked, the on graphic there Sohts that spread across their entire fronts Sohts at all, just blank sheet htly taller, soer Soot to the end of the first uneven row and turned to the next There had to be more than one hundred of theuess I’ dreams"

Because of course these were from Kavinsky’s head Like the fake licenses, like the leather bands he’d given Ronan, like the incredible substances his friends would travel hours for, like every impossible firework he sent up each year on the Fourth, like every forgery he was known for in Henrietta

He was a Greywaren

Kavinsky hauled up the parking brake They were a white Mitsubishi in a world of white Mitsubishis Every thought in Ronan’s head was a shard of light, gone before he could hold it

"I told you, man," Kavinsky said "Simple solution"

Ronan’s voice was low "Cars An entire car"

He hadn’t even iht to try for ht there was anyone outside of himself and his father

"No -- world," Kavinsky said "An entire world"

After the party had dwindled to nothing, Gansey crept down the back staircase, avoiding his family He didn’t knohere Adauests of his mother occupied all of the other spare bedroo for him Gansey was meant to sleep on the couch, but there would be no sleep for hiarden

With a sigh, he sat on the edge of the concrete fountain The nuances and wonders of the English garden were many, but most of them were lost after dark The air was thick with the scent of boxwood, gardenias, and Chinese food The only flowers he could see hite and drowsy

His soul felt raw and battered inside him

What he needed was to sleep, so this day would be over and he could start a new one What he needed was to be able to turn off his ht with Adam