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Maura stopped swirling her drink "Not hanging out with Gansey"

At least Blue could still be certain that her mother would never lie to her

She just wouldn’t say anything at all

Chapter 28

"Why the church?" Blue asked froer seat of the Camaro She’d never ridden in the front before, and in the passenger seat, the sensation of the car being a few thousand parts flying in uneasy formation was even more pronounced

Gansey, installed colasses and Top-Siders, took his ti "I don’t know Because it’s on the line, but it’s not as … whatever Cabeswater is I have to think o back"

"Because it’s like we’re going into someone’s house" Blue tried not to look at Gansey’s boat shoes; she felt better about hi them

"Exactly! That’s exactly what it feels like" He pointed at her like he pointed at Adam when Adam made a coearshift knob to stop its rattling

Blue found it a thrilling idea, actually, that the trees were thinking creatures, that they could speak That they knew her

"Turn here!" Blue ordered, as Gansey nearly passed the ruined church With a broad sears With only a few protesting rubber noises, they love box fell open and shot its contents onto Blue’s lap

"Why do you even have this car?" she asked Gansey shut off the engine, but her legs still felt like they vibrated in time with it

"Because it is a classic," he replied primly "Because it’s unique"

"But it’s a piece of crap Don’t they make unique classics that don’t --" Blue de the door to the glove box shut a few times Now, as she reinserted the box’s contents and slaain ejected its contents onto her legs

"Oh, they do," Gansey said, and she thought she detected a bit of an edge to his voice Not anger, really, but irony He put a mint leaf in his mouth and cliistration and an ancient strip of beef jerky in the glove box, and then she inspected the other object that had fallen into her lap It was an EpiPen -- a syringe meant to restart soic reaction Unlike the beef jerky, its expiration date was current

"Whose is this?" she asked

Gansey was already out of the car, holding the EMF reader and stretching as if he’d been in the car for hours instead of thirty minutes She noticed that he had i tea over his shoulder at her, he replied, disht, then it’ll shut"

She did as he recolove box latched, the EpiPen safely replaced inside

On the other side of the car, Gansey tipped his head back to look at the stor towers In the very deep distance, they were nearly the sae of the reen river twisting back toward town The indirect light of the sun was peculiar: nearly yellow, thick with humidity Apart frorowl of thunder

"I hope the weather holds," he remarked

He strode over to the ruined church This, Blue had discovered, was how Gansey got places -- striding Walking was for ordinary people

Standing beside hiht, as she always did Growing inside the ruined walls arass and trees as tall as her strove toward the sunlight There was no evidence there had ever been any pews, or any congregation There was soless about it: death with no afterlife

She reo She wondered if Neeve really was looking for her father, and if she hat she intended to do with hi into the church and she wondered if Gansey --

Gansey said, "I feel like I’ve been here before"

Blue didn’t kno to answer She’d already told him one half-truth about St Mark’s Eve, and she wasn’t sure it was right to tell him the other half Moreover, she wasn’t sure it felt true Standing next to hiine that he would be dead in less than a year He earing a teal polo shirt, and it seemed impossible that so other than heart disease at age eighty-six, possibly at a polo ht now?"

Gansey turned it toward her His knuckles were pale, bone pressed through skin Red lights flashed across the surface of the ed Sas In all likelihood, all of this was private property, even the ground the church was on, but the area behind the church looked o that way, it see We can’t be low profile because of your shirt"

"Aquamarine is a wonderful color, and I won’t beit," Gansey said But his voice was a bit thin, and he glanced back at the church again Just then he looked younger than she’d ever seen him, his eyes narrowed, hair h, afraid

Blue thought: I can’t tell him I can never tell hi

Then Gansey, suddenly charain, flipped a hand in the direction of her purple tunic dress "Lead the way, Eggplant"

She found a stick to poke at the ground for snakes before they set off through the grass The wind sround rumbled with thunder, but the weather held The machine in Gansey’s hands blinked red constantly, only flickering to orange when they stepped too far away fro, Jane," Gansey said