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The Gray Man, buckled over, braced himself on the doorjamb He panted, "They never do"

Ronan heaved himself up Blue handed him Chainsaw The Gray Man stood up Maura handed him his jacket

The Gray Man wiped a palm on his slacks He eyed Chainsaw, and then he said, "On the Fourth, unless I think of a better idea, I will call my employer and tell him that I have the Greywaren"

They all looked at hi it forpause

"And then what?" Maura asked

The Gray Man looked at her "I run"

55

Adaet to the field where Cabeswater used to be, and when he could drive it no farther, he parked it in the grass and began to walk Before, when he’d been with the others, they’d used the GPS and the EMF reader to find Cabeswater He didn’t need that now He was the detector If he focused, he could feel the line far below hi his hands out, pal the trey Grasshoppers catapulted out of his way He watched his feet for snakes Overhead, the save way to storm clouds on the western horizon He wasn’t worried about the rain, but lightning -- lightning

Actually, lightning ht be useful He lanced up at the tree line to his right They hadn’t yet begun to flip their leaves He had hours before the storh the stalks

It had been so long since he had felt like this -- like he could devote his thoughts to soet to sleep Like hiswas possible, if he only threw hih This had been how he felt before he decided to go to Aglionby

World, I’ a set of tarot cards fro that Cabeswater could use to more easily communicate with him Maybe later he could return for theent to return to this place where the ley line was the strongest

I will be your hands I will be your eyes

This was the bargain he had made And in return, he could feel Cabeswater in him Cabeswater couldn’t offer hi he wanted to nae

It was an old sort of power

Ada purple thunderheads Soain, relieved over and over that he was hior wanting anyone else

He walked to the tiny stream that used to lead into Cabeswater and now led only to , he hovered his hands over the trickle of water There was no one to see hier Because the first ti an EMF reader over the water and watching the flashing red lights He’d been so excited by those lights -- they’d found so!

And now Adam felt it in his hands He felt it in his spine He could see it mapped in his brain The ley line traveled beneath hied and conducted through the water, traveling upward to the surface It was only a small stream, only a small crack in the bedrock, so this was only a se He straightened and followed the streathened inside hi Cabeswater was not here now, but his h it the first tiain Here here they’d had to climb between two rocks to follow the streaer in dia from the forest floor Here the moss furred the trunks

And here was the pool and the dreaed itself for Gansey, and the first place ic had truly revealed itself to all of the tree pressed into his rief, spitting at Adam, "Are you happy now, Ada to happen now He’d changed his future He’d chosen a different way

Thunder guttered and popped distantly With a deep breath to steel hi tree had been-- would be -- was still? No vision overcae of the ley line beneath his feet

Yes, this here he needed to be Crouching, he parted the grass and pressed his pal body He closed his eyes

He felt the course of the ley line stretching out on either side of him Hundreds of miles one way, hundreds of miles the other There were distant starbursts where the line intersected with other lines, and for a moment, he was dazzled by them By the possibility of endless wonders Glendoas h, but if there was a h miracles for a lifetime, if only you had the patience to look

Oh, Gansey, he thought suddenly Because Gansey had the patience to look And because things wanted Gansey to find them He should have been here, now

No It wouldn’t work like this if he was here You have to be alone for this

Adam pulled hisinstead on only the ley line beneath hiy Here it spurted up through an underground river Escaped through an earthquake-shocked bedrock Burst up through a well Exploded through a transfor It was a frayed wire, energy leaking at a hundred different points

"I feel it," he whispered

The wind hissed through the grass around him He opened his eyes

If he could repair those points, like electrician’s tape on a wire, heCabeswater back