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She replied, "I expect that would be a very different world with very different priorities"

"Bad?" he asked "A bad world?"

She looked at hiht?" he asked

Persephone turned back to her cards Swick She turned over a second one

I should call work, Adaht He hadn’t called off sick before I should call Gansey

But there was no tio before -- before --

Hurry

As they pulled onto the interstate, Ada in the opposite direction on the other side of the median Kavinsky

But was that Kavinsky behind the wheel? Adam craned his head to look in thespeck on the horizon

Persephone turned over a card The Devil

All of a sudden, Ada He’d known since the night before that he needed to hone the line’s energy in order for Cabeswater to reappear An important task, certainly, but not life-or-death

But now, he knew all at once what he was hurrying for They were restoring the ley line for Cabeswater They were restoring it now because Ronan was going to need it Tonight

Hurry

59

The first thing Ronan noticed at church on the Fourth was that the priest had a black eye The second thing he noticed was that Mattheasn’t there The third thing he noticed was that there was space for two people on the pew beside Declan Everyone at St Agnes knew the Lynch brothers didn’t coe For the first feeeks after Niall had died, the boys had always left rooically arrive partway through the service

I’ht, and then pushed it out of his head

He was quite late to the special Mass; it looked like insolence By the time he slid into the pew beside Declan, a sun to intone the first reading It was a passage Ronan used to love as a child -- of this one I aone with Gansey to pick up the Gray Man froiven hiotten the puzzle box back It see

Declan looked sharply to Ronan He hissed, "Where’s Matthew?"

"You tell fully

"You weren’t here on Sunday" Declan’s voice held the weight of an accusation "And Matthew says you didn’t ever explain"

Ronan had to guiltily ad on the hood of an invented Cah to what day it was Then he realized what Declan was hinting at -- that possibly, Mattheas taking revenge on Ronan with an unannounced disappearance of his own While it was true that tricking Ronan into a solo church visit with Declan would have been an excellent punishment, it didn’t feel like Matthew’s handiwork at all

"Oh, please," Ronan whispered "He’s not that clever"

Declan looked shocked and poisonous He was always so alarmed by the truth

"Have you called hi up" Declan narrowed his eyes as if this failure to answer his phone was an infection his youngest brother had picked up froged

"He doesn’t skip" The inverse statement was implied: unlike you

"Until he does"

"This is all your fault," Declan said, hushed His eyes darted to the empty pew beside Ronan and then to the priest "I told you to keep your mouth shut I told you to keep your head down Why can’t you just do what you’re told for once?"

Someone kicked the back of their pew It struck Ronan as an extreant and dangerous, and raised an eyebrow at thebehind him He waited The man dropped his eyes

Declan flicked Ronan’s ar"

"Oh, I know enough I know exactly what you are"

There was a tih Ronan like venom Now, he didn’t have tis, his older brother’s opinion ranked very low In fact, Ronan was only here because of Matthew, and without Matthew here, there was no reason to stay He slid out of the pew

"Ronan," whispered Declan ferociously "Where are you going?"

Ronan put a finger to his lips A smile snaked out on either side of it

Declan just shook his head, lifting a hand like he was simply done with Ronan And that, of course, was another lie, because he was never done with Ronan But at the hteen and freedom seemed a lot closer than it had before, and it didn’t reat, heavy doors of the church -- the sah with the newly dreamt Chainsaw -- he pulled out his phone and called Matthew