“Artemus?” she asked gently.

He didn’t lift his head.

She touched his chin with a finger; he flinched. She tilted his face up so that they were eye to eye. He had never rushed to fill spaces with words, and he still didn’t. He looked as if he might never speak again, if he could help it.

Since they had both climbed out of the cave, Maura had not asked him about anything that had happened in the years since she’d seen him last. But now she asked, “What happened to you to make you like this?”

He closed his eyes.

Where the hell is Ronan?” Gansey asked, echoing the words that thousands of humans had uttered since mankind developed speech. As he stepped out of the science building, he tipped his head backwards, as if Ronan Lynch – dreamer of dreams, fighter of men, skipper of classes – might somehow be flying overhead. He was not. There was only a plane tracing silently through the deep blue above the Aglionby campus. On the other side of the iron fence beside them, the town of Henrietta made productive afternoon business noises. On this side, the students of Aglionby made unproductive afternoon teenage noises. “Was he in Technology?”

Adam Parrish – magician and puzzle, student and logician, man and boy – shuffled his ambitiously laden messenger bag on to his other shoulder. He saw no reason why Gansey would believe Ronan had been anywhere near the campus. It was taking all of Adam’s willpower to focus on Aglionby after the week of magical caves and mysterious sleepers they’d just had, and Adam was the most motivated student there. Ronan, on the other hand, had only shown up to Latin with any regularity, and now that every Latin student had been ignominiously shunted into an extra section of French, what was left for him?

“Was he?” repeated Gansey.

“I thought it was a rhetorical question.”

Gansey looked angry for approximately the length of time it took for a late butterfly to bluster by them in the autumn breeze. “He’s not even trying.”

It had been over one week since they’d retrieved Maura – Blue’s mother – and Artemus – Blue’s … father? – from the cave system. Three days since they had put Roger Malory – Gansey’s ancient British friend – on a plane back to the UK. Two days back at school this week.

Zero days of Ronan attendance.

Was it a foul waste? Yes. Was it entirely Ronan Lynch’s responsibility? Yes.

Behind them, the bell rang noisily in the science building, two minutes after the period had actually ended. It was a proper bell with a proper rope, and it was supposed to be rung properly at the end of the period by a proper student. The two-minute disparity prematurely aged Adam Parrish. He liked it when people knew how to do their jobs.

“Say something,” Gansey said.

“That bell.”

“Everything is terrible,” agreed Gansey.

The two friends stepped off the walk to make the trek across the sports fields. It was a gift, this commute from the science building to Gruber Hall, ten luxurious minutes gulping air and sunshine between classes. Being on campus in general comforted Adam; the predictable routine cradled him. Study hard. Go to class. Hold up your hand. Answer the question. March towards graduation. Other classmates complained about the work. Work! Work was the island Adam swam to in a stormy sea.

And the sea was very stormy. Monsters churned in the ley line beneath them. A forest grew through the hands and eyes Adam had bargained away to Cabeswater. And Gansey was supposed to die before April. That was the troubled ocean – Glendower was the island. To wake him was to get a favour, and that favour would be to save Gansey’s life. This enchanted country needed an enchanted king.

That weekend, Adam had dreamt twice that they had already found Glendower and were now seeking him again. The first night he’d had the dream, it had been a nightmare. The second time, a relief.

He asked carefully, “What’s next for the Glendower search?”

“The Dittley cave,” Gansey said.

This answer startled Adam. Ordinarily Gansey favoured the cautious approach, and the Dittley cave was the opposite. For starters, after they pulled Glendower’s daughter Gwenllian out of it, strange animals had begun crawling from the mouth every so often. And for finishers, Piper Greenmantle had shot Jesse Dittley dead at its entrance. Everything about the cave reeked of past and future death. “You don’t think Gwenllian would’ve told us if she thought her father was further down in that cave, instead of having us wander the cave of bones?”

“I think Gwenllian serves her own purpose,” Gansey replied. “And I have yet to figure out what it might be.”

“I just don’t think it’s a reasonable risk. Plus, it’s a crime scene.”

If Ronan had been there, he would have said, Everywhere’s a crime scene.

Gansey said, “Does this mean you have different ideas?”

Ideas, plural? Adam would have been happy to have a single idea. The most promising way forward, a cave in Cabeswater, had collapsed during their last excursion, and no new opportunities had appeared to replace it. Gansey had observed that it felt like a test of worthiness, and Adam couldn’t help but agree. Cabeswater had assigned them a trial, they’d set themselves at it, and somehow they’d been found wanting. It had felt so right, though. He and Ronan had worked together to clear the cave of hazards, and then the entire group had pooled their talents to briefly revive the skeletons of an ancient herd that had led Ronan and Blue to Maura. Every night since then, Adam had relived that memory before he went to sleep. Ronan’s dreams, Adam focusing the ley line, Blue amplifying, Gansey speaking the entire plan into motion. Adam had never felt so … intrinsic before. They had been a fine machine.

But it hadn’t taken them to Glendower.

Adam suggested, “Talk more to Artemus?”

Gansey made a hm sound. It would have been pessimistic coming from anyone but was doubly so coming from him. “I don’t think we’ll have a problem talking to Artemus. It’s getting him to talk back I’m worried about.”

“I thought you always said you were persuasive,” Adam said.

“Experience has not proven this to be the case.”

“Gansey Boy!” shouted a voice across the fields. Whitman, one of Gansey’s old rowing teammates, lifted three fingers in salute. Gansey didn’t respond until Adam lightly touched his shoulder with the back of his hand. Gansey blinked up, and then his face transformed into his Richard Campbell Gansey III smile. What a treasure that smile was, passed down through the ages from father to son, tucked away in hope chests during son-less generations, buffed and displayed proudly whenever company was over.