Page 50 (1/2)

He just leaned his cheek and the edge of his ainst her knuckles and then set her hand back in her lap

"I know," he said "I wouldn’t"

Her skin burned with thebird of her heart shivered and shivered again "Thanks for re"

He looked back over the valley "Oh, Jane"

"Oh, Jane, what?"

"He didn’t want et you to coht at Nino’s I had to talk him into it And then I made such an idiot of ?"

She just looked at hi boy That I destroyed Adaht for no reason at all That I aht you were an asshole"

Gallantly, he said, "Thank God for past tense" Then: "I can’t -- we can’t do this to hi To have"

"No, Jesus Of course you’re not But you knohat I ht They couldn’t do this to him She shouldn’t do it to herself, anyway But how it made a disaster of her chest and her mouth and her head

"I wish you could be kissed, Jane," he said "Because I would beg just one off you Under all this" He flailed an ar about it again"

That could’ve been the end of it

I want so more

She said, "We can pretend Just once And then we’ll never say anything about it again"

What a strange, shifting person he was The Gansey who turned to her noas a world away from the lofty boy she’d first met Without any hesitation, she stretched her arer than her body High as the stars He leaned toward her -- her heart spun again -- and pressed his cheek against hers His lips didn’t touch her skin, but she felt his breath, hot and uneven, on her face His fingers splayed on either side of her spine Her lips were so close to his jaw that she felt his hint of stubble at the end of them It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again

Oh, help, she thought Help, help, help

He pulled away He said, "And noe never speak of it again"

52

That night, after Gansey had gone to reen pills from his stillunwashed pair of jeans and returned to bed Propped up in the corner, he stretched out his hand to Chainsaw, but she ignored him She had stolen a cheese cracker and noas very busily stacking things on top of it to lancing back at his outstretched hand, she pretended not to see it as she added a bottle cap, an envelope, and a sock to the pile hiding the cracker

"Chainsaw," he said Not sharply, but like hehis tone, she soared to the bed She didn’t generally enjoy petting, but she turned her head left and right as Ronan softly traced the sy had it taken from the ley line to create her, he wondered? Was it more to take out a person? A car?

Ronan’s phone buzzed He tilted it to read the incoether Ronan let the phone fall back to the bedspread Ordinarily, seeing Kavinsky’s naency, but not tonight Not after spending sothe Camaro He needed to process all of this first

ask me whatphone She’d learned a lot froreen pill in his hand He wouldn’t take anything out of his drea to the ley line But it didn’t mean he couldn’t still choose what to dreaery is Prokopenko

Ronan put the pill back in his pocket He felt warm and sleepy and just -- fine For once, he felt fine Sleep didn’t feel like a weapon tucked inside his brain He knew he could choose to dream of the Barns now, if he tried, but he didn’t want to drea to eat you alive ht: My father My father My father And when he opened his eyes again, the old trees roamed

upward all around hi srass seed and le in the charcoal BMW he had dreae of Ronan, and also of Declan, and also of Matthew A handsome devil with one eye the color of a promise and the other the color of a secret When he saw Ronan, he rolled down the

"Ronan," he said

It sounded like heto say Ias he knew hirin cracked over his father’s face He had the widest sest son "You figured it out," he said He held a finger to his lips "Remember?"

Music wafted out the openof the BMW that had been Niall Lynch’s but was now Ronan’s A soaring bit of tune played by the uilleann pipes, dissipating into the trees

"I know," Ronan replied "Tell me what you meant in the will"

His father said, "T’Libre vero-e ber nivo libre n’acrea"

This Will stands as fact unless a newer document is created

"It’s a loophole," his father said "A loophole for thieves"

"Is that a lie?" Ronan asked

Because Niall Lynch was the biggest liar of them all, and he’d stuffed all of that into his eldest son There was not much difference between a lie and a secret

"I never lie to you"

His father started the BMW and flashed his slow srin he had, what ferocious eyes, what a creature he was He had dreamt hio back"

"Then take it," said his father "You kno"

And Ronan did Because Niall Lynch was a forest fire, a rising sea, a car crash, a closing curtain, a blistering syiven all of that to his middle son