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"I’ll show you out," Maura said She was clearly eager to see them on the other side of the door For a moment, it looked as if Gansey felt the same, but then he stopped He paid an undue amount of attention to his wallet as he folded it and reinserted it into his pocket, and then he looked up to Maura and made a firm line of his mouth

"Look, we’re all adults here," he started

Calla reed

Gansey squared his shoulders and continued, "So I think we deserve the truth Tellbut you don’t want to helpon, but don’t lie to ant one, or h of a difference between the two things toto Maura

She said, "I know so but I don’t want to help you"

For the second tihted Blue’s mouth was open She closed it

Gansey, however, just nodded, no more or less distressed than when Blue had retorted back to hiht, then No, no, you can stay put We’ll let ourselves out"

And just like that, they did, Ada Blue a last look that she couldn’t easily interpret A second later, the Cah, and the tires squealed out Gansey’s true feelings Then the house was quiet It was a sucked-out silence, like the raven boys had taken all the sound in the neighborhood with the to say soain, louder, "Mom!"

"Maura," Calla said, "that was very rude" Then she added, "I liked it"

Maura turned to Blue as if Calla hadn’t spoken "I don’t want you to ever see hinant, Blue cried, "Whatever happened to ‘children should never be given orders’?"

"That was before Gansey" Maura flipped around the Death card, giving Blue a long time to stare at the skull inside the hel you not to walk in front of a bus"

Several coh Blue’s head before she found one that she wanted "Why? Neeve didn’t seeto die in the next year"

"First of all, the corpse road is a prouarantee," Maura replied "Second of all, there are other terrible fates besides death Shall we talk about disical trau with those boys When your ood reason"

From the kitchen, Persephone’s soft voice called, "If so in front of a bus, Maura, Blue wouldn’t be here"

Maura shot a frown in her direction, then swept her hand across the reading table as if she were clearing it of crumbs "The best-case scenario here is that youto die"

"Ah," said Calla, in a very, very knoay "Now I see"

"Don’t psychoanalyze ain, ‘ah’"

Maura sneered uncharacteristically, and then asked Calla, "What did you see when you touched that other boy? The raven boy?"

"They’re all raven boys," Blue said

Her mother shook her head "No, he’s ether, as if she iping theinto that weird space There’s soout of him, it shouldn’t be possible Do you renant with quadruplets? It was like that, but worse"

"He’s pregnant?" Blue asked

"He’s creating," Calla said "That space is creating, too I don’t kno to say it any better than that"

Blue wondered what sort of creating they s and cutting thes that already existed and transfor else This, she felt, hat most people meant when they called someone creative

But she suspected that wasn’t how Calla meant it She suspected that what Callawhere before there was none

Maura caught Blue’s expression She said, "I’ve never told you to do anything before, Blue But I’ you now Stay away fro, Gansey woke to a colasses It sounded a little like one of his roo killed by a possuht He wasn’t certain of the specifics, but he was sure death was involved

Noah stood in the doorway to his roo "Make it stop," he said

Ronan’s room was sacred, and yet here Gansey was, twice in the sa the door open He found the la only boxers Six otten the intricate black tattoo that covered most of his back and snaked up his neck, and now the monochroht,else in the room It was a peculiar tattoo, both vicious and lovely, and every ti different in the pattern Tonight, nestled in an inked glen of wicked, beautiful flowers, was a beak where before he’d seen a scythe

The ragged sound cut through the apartain