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Gansey was untroubled with the story up to this point This was the Glendower he’d follohere

Then, the two men spotted a deer Hywel lifted his bow But instead of shooting the animal, he let the arrow fly at Glendowerwho had cleverly worn chain mail beneath his tunic

Gansey would’ve preferred the story to end here

But it didn’t Instead, unhared by the betrayal, Glendower pursued Hywel, stabbed him, and finally stuffed Hywel’s body inside an oak tree

All the stabbing and stuffing and utter loss of tenoble Gansey wished he hadn’t ever found the story There was no unreading it But now, after hearing Kavinsky’s slow laugh on the other end of the line, i the Caht he finally gli

He was at once closer and farther from Glendower than he’d been before

41

Ronan woke up in a movie theater seat

Of course, it wasn’t really a , fliht of day, he could see that it was done up with the works Realprojector, shelf full of action flicks and porn with uninventive titles He vaguely recalled, with less acuity than a drea on the big pulldown screen last night What was he doing? He had no idea what he was doing He couldn’t focus on anything except one hundred white Mitsubishis in a field

"You didn’t throw up," Kavinsky noted, from his perch two seats away He held Ronan’s phone "Most people throw up after drinking that much"

Ronan didn’t say the truth, which was that he was not a stranger to drinking hi at all He just stared at Kavinsky, doing the math: One hundred white Mitsubishis Two dozen fake IDs Five leather bracelets Two of us

"Say so, Rain Man," said Kavinsky

"Are there others?"

Kavinsky shrugged "Hell if I know"

"Is your father one?"

"Is your father one?"

Ronan got up Kavinsky watched him try all three of the

insubstantial white doors until he found the bathroom He shut the door behind himself and peed and splashed water on his face and stared at himself

One hundred white Mitsubishis

On the other side of the door, Kavinsky said, "I’ bored, man You want a line?"

Ronan didn’t answer He dried his treainst the wall and watched Kavinsky do a line off the top of the popcorn ain when Kavinsky raised an eyebrow, an offering

"You always this talkative after you drink?" Kavinsky asked

"What were you doing withelse about my mother," Ronan said easily, "and I’ll smash your face in How do you do it?"

He expected Kavinsky to crack another lewd joke about his aze on Ronan, his pupils cocaine-huge

"So violent Such a PTSD poster boy You kno to do it," Kavinsky said "I saw you do it"

Ronan’s heart twitched convulsively It couldn’t see the opposite of one "What are you talking about?"

Kavinsky leapt to his feet "Your ‘suicide atteht by Proko’sI saw you wake up and the blood appear I knehat you were"

That had beenhad even begun All this time Kavinsky had known all this ti about me," Ronan said

Kavinsky jumped to stand on one of the theater seats As the furniture rocked beneath hi that had been overplayed two years before -- and Ronan realized it , too "Come on, man"

"TellThe cars The IDs The --" He lifted his wrist to indicate the bracelets The list could’ve gone on and on The fireworks The drugs

"You have to go after what you want," Kavinsky said "You have to knohat you want"

Ronan said nothing Under those parameters, it would be impossible for him What he wanted was to knohat he wanted

Kavinsky’s sone

At two p himself, he knocked on the bedroom door Then he pushed it open and found the room empty and sterile Afternoon sun washed over the unfinished silhouettes of old models He leaned toward the bathroom and called Adam’s name, but it was clear there was no one in either rooht was onlyhaving to do with the tea party, nor was he surprised he was lying low after last night’s argument But now he needed hi parts off the car, he was going to self-immolate

But Adam wasn’t there It turned out that Adam wasn’t anywhere

He was not in the onion-scented kitchen or the brick-floored library or the small, moldyroom, nor the voluminous corner couches in the casual family roo in the huuht before It felt worse this time around

"I can’t find Ada in an armchair in the upstairs study, but when she saw his face, she sat up without complaint