The Dream Thieves

“I didn’t know that you —”



“That’s my point! Did it even occur to you?”



It had not.



“You wouldn’t have gone someplace without Gansey, though,” Blue snapped. “You two make a grand couple! Kiss him!”



Adam cocked his head witheringly.



“Well, I don’t want to be just someone to kiss. I want to be a real friend, too. Not just someone who’s fun to have around because — because I have breasts!”



She didn’t generally swear, but breasts felt as close to swearing as Adam could imagine at that moment. The combination of breasts and the morphing of the conversation annoyed him. “Nice, Blue. Gansey was right. You really can be a raging feminist.”



Blue sealed her mouth. Her shoulders trembled slightly: not like fear, but like the tremors before an earthquake.



He shot out, “You still didn’t answer my question. Nothing of what you just said actually has any bearing on us.”



Her lips made a sour shape. “You want the truth?”



“It’s what I wanted at the beginning of all this,” Adam said, even though he didn’t actually know what he wanted from her anymore. He wanted this fight to be done. He wished he hadn’t come. He wished he’d asked her about Glendower instead. He wished he’d thought to ask her to the party. How could he have? His head was too full, too empty, too askew. He’d walked too far out, right past solid ground, but he couldn’t seem to turn around.



“Right. The truth.” She balled her fists and crossed her arms. “Here it is. I’ve been told by psychics my whole life that if I kiss my true love, I’ll kill him. There it is. Are you happy? I didn’t tell you right away because I didn’t want to say true love and scare you off.”



The trees wobbled behind her. Another vision was trying to manifest. He tried to untangle himself from it to sift his memories, trying to coordinate their near-kisses with her confession of this deadly prophecy. It didn’t feel real, but nothing did.



“And now?”



“I don’t know you, Adam.”



That’s not your fault, whispered the air. You are unknowable.



“And now?”



“Now? Now —” Finally, Blue’s voice shook a little. “I didn’t tell you until just now because I realized it didn’t matter. Because it’s not gonna be you.”



He felt it like one of his father’s punches. A moment of deadness and then blood rushing to the point of contact. And then it wasn’t sadness, but the now-familiar heat. It tore through him like an explosion, busting windows and devouring everything in an instantaneous blast.



In slow motion he could imagine the swing of his hand.



No.



No, he’d done this before with her, and he wasn’t doing it again.



He spun away, one fist on his forehead. With the other, he struck the wall, but not hard. Just like he was grounding himself, discharging. He tore apart the anger, limb from limb. Focused on the burning, terrible fire in his chest until it went out.



It’s not gonna be you.



And at the end, all that was left was this: I want to leave.



There had to be some other place he hadn’t been yet, some soil where this emotion wouldn’t thrive.



When he turned back around, she was motionless, watching him. When she blinked, two tears appeared like magic on her cheeks. The fast tears. The ones that were in your eyes and down your chin before you realized you were crying. Adam knew about those.



“Is that the truth?” he asked. He asked it so quietly that the words came out gravelly, like a violin played too softly.



Two more tears had queued up, but when she blinked, they remained in her eyes. Shining little lakes.



Not you.



Not him with his shabby anger, his long silences, his brokenness.



Not you.



Look at you, Adam, Gansey’s voice said. Just look.



Not you.



“Prove it,” he whispered.



“What?”



Louder: “Prove it.”



She started shaking her head.



“If it’s not me, it’s not going to do anything, is it?”



She shook her head harder. “No, Adam.”



Louder. “If it’s not gonna be me, Blue, it doesn’t matter, does it? That’s what you said. It’s never gonna be me.”



Miserably, she said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Adam.”



“Either it’s the truth or it’s not.”



Blue put a hand on his chest and pressed. “I don’t want to kiss you. It’s not going to be you and me.”



Not you.



Since the last time his father had hit him, Adam’s left ear had been dead and unresponsive. No hissing, no static. Just the absence of sensation.



That was how his entire body felt now.



“Okay,” he said, voice colorless.



Blue wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. I really am.”



“Okay.”



Feeling was coming back, but it was unfocused and dull. Shimmering and fuzzy. It wasn’t going to be him and her. It wasn’t going to be him and Gansey. There was no more not here, not now. It was here. It was now. It was just going to be him and Cabeswater.



I am unknowable.



He was going down the stairs, though he didn’t remember leaving Blue’s room. Had he said anything? He was just going. He didn’t know where. Voices and images flickered around him, pressing crookedly.



One voice cut through the dissonance. It was the quietest in the house.



“Adam,” Persephone said, catching his sleeve as he opened the front door, “it’s time for us to talk.”



50



Persephone gave him pie. It was pecan and she had made it and his taking it wasn’t presented as an option. Maura frowned at him. “Are you sure this is the right way, P? I guess you know best . . .”



“Sometimes,” Persephone admitted. “Come on, Adam. We’re going to the reading room. Blue can come in with you. But it will be very personal.”



He hadn’t realized Blue was there. He kept his head down. There was a scuff on his hand from his walk down the interstate, and he worried silently at the skin at the edges.



Blue said, “What’s happening?”



Persephone flapped a hand as if it were too difficult for her to explain.



Maura said, “She’s balancing his insides with his outsides. Making peace with Cabeswater, yes?”



Persephone nodded. “Close enough.”



Blue said, “I’ll come with, if you want me to.”



All faces swung toward him.



If he went in by himself, it was nothing but this: Adam Parrish.



In a way, it had always been that. Sometimes the scenery changed. Sometimes the weather was better.



But in the end, all he had was this: Adam Parrish.



He made it easier to accept by telling himself again: It’s just the reading room.



He knew it was not the truth. But it was shaped like the truth.



“I’d like to do it by myself,” he said in a low voice. He didn’t look at her.



Persephone stood up. “Bring your pie.”



Adam brought his pie.



The reading room was darker than the rest of the house, lit only by blocky candles congregated in the center of the reading table. Adam set the plate on the table.



Persephone closed the doors behind her. “Take a bite of pie.”



Adam took a bite of pie.



The world focused, just a little bit.



With the doors shut, the room smelled like roses after dark and a match just blown out. And with the lights off, it was strangely difficult to tell how large the room was. Even though Adam knew full well the tiny dimensions of the room, it felt massive now, like an underground cavern. The walls seemed distant and uneven, the space swallowing the sounds of their breathing and the movement of the cards.



Adam thought: I could stop now.



But it was only the reading room. This was only a room that should have been a dining room. Nothing was going to change in here.



Adam knew that none of these things was true, but it was easier to pretend that they were.



Persephone selected a frame from the wall. Adam just had time to see that it was a photograph of a standing stone in a ragged field, and then she set it glass-up on the table in front of him. In the dark and candlelight, the image disappeared. All that was visible was the reflection off the glass; it was suddenly a rectangle pool or mirror. The candlelight twirled and spun in the glass, not quite like the candlelight in reality. His stomach surged.



“You must feel it,” Persephone said, on the other side of the table. She did not sit. “How out of balance you are.”



It was too obvious to agree to. He pointed to the glass with its faulty reflections. “What is that for?”



“Scrying,” she replied. “It’s a way of looking other places. Places that are too far away to see, or places that only sort of exist, or places that don’t want to be seen.”



Adam thought he saw smoke spiral up against the glass. He blinked. Gone. His hand smarted. “Where are we looking?”



“Someplace very far away,” Persephone said. She smiled at him. It was a tiny, secretive thing, like a bird peering from branches. “Inside you.”



“Is it safe?”



“It is the opposite of safe,” Persephone said. “In fact, you’d better have another bite of pie.”



Adam took a bite of pie. “What will happen if I don’t do it?”



“What you’re feeling will only get worse. You can’t really do the edge pieces first on this puzzle.”



“But if I do it,” Adam started — then stopped, because the truth bit and burrowed and fit inside him, “I’ll be changed forever?”



She tilted her head sympathetically. “You’ve already changed yourself. When you made the sacrifice. This is just the end part of that.”



Then there was no point not doing it.



“Tell me how to do it, then.”



Persephone leaned forward, but she still didn’t sit. “You have to stop giving things away. You didn’t sacrifice your mind. Start choosing to keep your thoughts your own. And remember your sacrifice, too. You need to mean it.”



“I did mean it,” Adam said, anger rushing up, sudden and singing and pure. It was an undying enemy.



She just blinked at him with her pure black eyes. His fury shriveled.



“You promised to be Cabeswater’s hands and eyes, but have you been listening to what it’s asked you for?”



“It hasn’t said anything.”



Persephone’s expression was knowing. Of course, it had. All at once, he knew that that was the cause of the apparitions and halfvisions. Cabeswater had been trying to get his attention, the only way it could. All of this noise, this sound, this chaos inside him.



“I couldn’t understand.”



“It’s out of balance, too,” she said. “But that’s a different ritual for a different problem. Now, look inside yourself, but know there are things in there that are hurtful. Scrying is never safe. You never know who you will meet.”



He asked, “Will you help me if something goes wrong?”



Her black eyes held his. He understood. He’d left his only help outside in the kitchen.