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"What?" he asked in a low voice

"You looked like you spent your last joy bill"

He hissed, "What does that evenit out"

"Well, it doesn’t work It doesn’t ot plenty of joy bills Loads"

Helen said, "What’s happening there on your phone?"

"A very shtly "You see, it does work Now, did you or did you not need to get out of that roos knew each other well

"You’re so welcome," Helen said "Let me know if you need me to write a joy check"

"I really don’t think it works"

"Oh, I think it has proet back to Ms Capelli We’re talking about space adaptation syndrome and the Coriolis effect I just wanted you to knohat you’reter door Gansey stood in the diing Then he called Ronan’s nu the phone back from his head, Gansey confirmed he had actually dialed the correct number The screen read RONAN LYNCH He couldn’t quite understand how Ronan’s phone had ended up in Kavinsky’s hands, but stranger things had happened At least now the text es made sense

"Dick-Three," Kavinsky said "You there?"

"Joseph," Gansey said pleasantly

"Funny I should hear froot half a face now Poor bastard"

Gansey closed his eyes and let out a whisper of a sigh

"Sorry, I didn’t hear you," Kavinsky said "Coain? I know, I know -- that’s what Lynch says"

Gansey set his teeth in a very straight line Gansey’s father, Richard Ca school, the now defunct Rochester Hall His father, collector of things, collector of words, collector of li, keen with the pursuit of wisdom This was a school that didn’t just teach history -- no, it wore the past like a comfortable jacket, beloved for all of its frayed ends Gansey II described students -- co bonds of brotherhood that would last for the rest of their lives It was C S Lewis and the Inklings, Yeats and the Abbey Theatre, Tolkien and his Kolbítar, Glendower and his poet Iolo Goch, Arthur and his knights It was a community of scholars just outside of adolescence, a sort of Marvel comic where every hero represented a different arm of the humanities

It was not toilet-papered trees and whispered bribes, frontlawn hacky sack and faculty affairs, gifted vodka and stolen cars

It was not Aglionby Academy

Sometimes, the difference between that utopia and the reality exhausted Gansey

"All right, now," Gansey said "This was great You giving this phone back to Ronan at any point?"

There was silence It was a slick sort of silence, the sort that would make bystanders turn their head to note it, sah

Gansey didn’t quite care for it

"He’s going to have to try harder," Kavinsky said

"I beg your pardon?"

"That’s what Lynch says, too"

Gansey could hear the crooked smile in Kavinsky’s voice He asked, "Do you ever think your humor veers too much on the side of prurient?"

"Man, don’t SAT at me Here’s what’s up The Ronan you know is no sroman Goddamn me! SAT that, Dick-dick-dick"

"Kavinsky," Gansey said evenly "Where’s Ronan?"

"Right here WAKE UP, FUCKWEASEL, IT’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND!" Kavinsky said "Sorry He’s totally pissed Can I take aminute to compose himself He discovered, on the other side of the ry to speak

"Dickie You still there?"

"I’ I alant To be entertained"

The phone went dead

As Gansey stood there, he suddenly recalled a story about Glendower, one that had always bothered hiend in lish when every other e and death the stink eye He’d united the people, defeated iical powers A lawyer, a soldier, a father A iant who’d left a permanent footprint

But this story -- so sticks at their English neighbors would improve Wales’s dire straits In particular, one of Glendower’s cousins, a ht Glendoas out of his lawyerly mind In the way of most fa a sht have put off most princes, but not Glendower He was a lawyer and -- like Gansey -- a believer in the power of words He arranged to meet Hywel alone in a deer park to talk it all over