Unbelievably, Ronan and Gansey were still fighting. Adam tuned back in as Ronan said, “Oh come on – there was no way I cared if Henry Cheng asked me to a party.”

“The point was that I asked you,” Gansey said. “Not that Henry asked. He didn’t care; I cared.”

“Aw,” said Ronan, but not in a kind way.

“Ronan,” Adam said.

Gansey flicked at the bloodstain on his slacks. “And instead, you went to Cabeswater. You could have died there, and I wouldn’t have even known where you were because you couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone. Do you remember that tapestry that Malory and I were talking about while he was here? The one with Blue’s face on it? Oh, of course you do, Adam, because you dredged up those nightmare Blues in Cabeswater. When the Noah thing was over, Blue looked just like it.” He lifted his hands, palms out. “Her hands were all red. Her own blood. You were the one who told me, Ronan, that something was starting, all those months ago. Now’s not the time to be going rogue. Someone’s going to get killed. No more playing around. There’s no more time for anything but truth. We’re supposed to be in this together, whatever this is.”

There was no effective protest to be made to any of this; it was all unquestionably true. Adam could have said that he had been to Cabeswater countless times to do the ley line’s work and that he had thought this was just like any other time, but he knew full well that he had realized something was off about the forest and continued anyway.

The Orphan Girl knocked over the coat hanger behind the office door and skittered away from the crash.

“Quit screwing around,” Ronan snapped. Counterintuitively, him losing his temper meant that the argument was over. “Put your hands in your pockets.”

She hissed something back to him in a language that was neither English nor Latin. Here in this mundane office, it was especially clear that she had been assembled according to rules from some other world. That old-fashioned sweater, those enormous black eyes, the slender legs with their hooves hidden in boots. It was impossible to believe that Ronan had pulled her from his dreams, but it had been impossible to believe his other outlandish dream objects, too. It seemed obvious now that they had been walking briskly for quite some time towards a world where a demon was plausible.

They all looked up sharply as the door to the back opened. Blue and Maura stepped into the waiting room as a nurse began to shuffle behind the counter. All attention immediately shifted to Blue.

She had two visible stiches in her right eyebrow, pinning together the cleaned-up edges of a gouge that continued down her cheek. Faint scratches on either side of the deepest wound told the story of fingers clawing into her skin. Her right eye was squinted mostly shut, but at least it was still there. Adam could tell that she was hurting.

He knew he cared about her because his stomach was tingling uncomfortably just looking at her wound, the suggestion of violence scratching through him like fingers on a chalkboard. Noah had done that. Adam curled his own hand into a fist, remembering what it had felt like for it to move on its own accord.

Gansey was right: Any of them could have died tonight. It was time to stop playing around.

For a strange second, none of them spoke.

Finally, Ronan said, “Jesus God, Sargent. Do you have stitches on your face? Bad. Ass. Put it here, you asshole.”

With some relief, Blue lifted her fist and bumped it against his.

“Corneal abrasion,” Maura said. Her humourless, businesslike tone betrayed her concern more than any crying could have. “Antibiotic drops. Should be OK.”

She eyed the Orphan Girl. The Orphan Girl eyed her back. Like Ronan, her attentive stare landed somewhere between sullen and aggressive, but the effect was slightly more uncanny when presented by a waif of a girl in muck boots. Maura looked as if she was about to ask something, but instead, she retreated to the counter to pay for the visit.

“Look,” Gansey said in a low voice. “I need to say something. This is a strange time to say it, but I – I kept waiting for the right moment to do it and I can’t stop thinking about how, if tonight had gone worse, I might have never got that moment. So here it is: I cannot ask you to be truthful if I haven’t been myself.”

He gathered himself. Adam saw his gaze land on Blue. Judging, perhaps, whether or not she knew what he was about to say, or whether he should say it. He touched his thumb to his lower lip, caught himself at it, lowered his hand.

“Blue and I have been seeing each other,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt any feelings, but I want to keep seeing her. I don’t want to hide it any more. It’s eating me, and nights like this, having to stand here and look at Blue with her face like this and pretend like —” He drew himself to a stop, a full stop, a silence so intense that no one tipped any other sound into it. Then he finished, repeating, “I cannot ask you to do things I haven’t been doing myself. I’m sorry for being a hypocrite.”

Adam had never quite believed that Gansey would acknowledge the relationship in such a pointed way, and now that the confession hung in the air, it was intensely unpleasant. There was no joy to be gained by Gansey looking so miserable, and there was no satisfaction to be gained by Gansey and Blue essentially asking for permission to continue seeing each other. Adam wished that they had just told him the truth all along; then it would have never come to this.

Ronan raised an eyebrow.

Blue drew her fingers into small, tight fists at her sides.

Gansey added nothing else, simply waited for judgement, his uncertain gaze on Adam in particular. He was such a tattered version of the person Adam had first met, and Adam couldn’t tell if Gansey was becoming someone different, or if he was returning to someone he’d already been long before. Adam rummaged within himself for anything that he wanted Gansey to say now, but nothing stood out. Respect was what he had wanted all this time, and respect was what he was looking at, even if it was belated.

“Thank you,” Adam said. “For finally telling us.” He meant for telling me. Gansey knew it; he gave an infinitesimal nod. Blue and Adam regarded each other. She sucked in her lip; he lifted a shoulder. They were both sorry.

“Good. I’m glad that’s out,” Gansey said in an airy voice. Long ago, Adam would have found this breezy response unbearable; he would have assumed it was flippancy. Now he knew that it was the opposite. When pressed too close to something huge and personal, Gansey ducked away into cheery politeness. It was so out of place here in this urgent care, in this tumultuous night, that it was truly unsettling, particularly paired with the continued disarray of his expression.