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He hates me

What he wanted was to be home, and home wasn’t here

He was stretched too thin to consider ise or as not He called Blue

"Hello?"

He pressed his eyes closed Just the sound of her voice, the Henrietta lull to it, made him feel uneven and shattered

"Hello?" she echoed

"Did I wake you up?"

"Oh, Gansey! No, you didn’t I had Nino’s tonight Is your thing done with?"

Gansey lay down, his cheek against the still sun-hot concrete of the fountain bench, and looked out of the ton, DC He held his phone to his other ear His homesickness devoured him "For now"

"Sorry for the noise," Blue said "It’s a zoo here, like always And I’o So what do you need?"

He took a deep breath

What do I need?

He saw Adaain He replayed his own answers He didn’t knohich of thean, "you could tell ht now?"

"What? Like, what Mo in like a passenger jet It kept going, though the flyby was close enough to tickle his skin "Or Persephone Or Calla Or anyone Just describe it to ed a little He heard a chair scraping on her side of the phone "Well, okay"

And she did Sometimes she spoke with her mouth full, and sometimes she had to pause to answer soave each of the women in the house full measure Gansey blinked, slower The take-out dinner sone away and all that res That, and Blue’s voice on the other end of the phone

"Like that?" she asked finally

"Yes," said Gansey "Thanks"

S

o to the Gray Man Once, he’d been stabbed with a screwdriver-- Phillips head, bright blue handle -- and falling in love

with Maura Sargent was exactly the sa when the screwdriver had pierced his side It hadn’t been unbearable when he’d stitched it up as he watched The Last Knight on the television by the bed (Arbor Palace Inn and Lodging, local color!) No, it had gotten terrible only when the wound had begun to close When he’d begun to regrow skin where it had been cheay

Now the ragged hole in his heart was regrowing out of the scar tissue, and he couldn’t stop feeling it

He felt it as he installed a new bank of rinned and winked and chirruped at him

He felt it as he sliced open the soles of his second pair of shoes and retrieved his spending cash froainst his hand

He felt it as he tried the doorknob of the Kavinskys’ vinylwide open without resistance He found a house full of wonders, none of them the Greywaren Mrs Kavinsky lifted her cheek slowly fro blearily, nostrils snotty

"I aination," he told her

She nodded

He felt it as he leaned over Ronan Lynch’s BMW in the parking lot of Mon and checked the VIN nu and indicated what sort of car it was and where the car wasand corresponded to the date of Niall Lynch’s birth The Gray Man was senselessly delighted by this

He felt it when Greenth of ti to me?" Greenmantle demanded "Do I need to come there myself?"

The Gray Man replied, "Henrietta is a nice little town"

He felt it as he let hines and asked the priest inside if the Lynch brothers had ever confessed anything of note The priest ed him across the small laminate counter of the kitchenette and the round breakfast table and through the automatic cat feeder provided for the use of the two rectory cats, Joan and Dymphna