"He was just alive," he said helplessly. "He just taught us four irregular verbs last week. And you killed him."

"Stop saying that. I didn’t save him. Stop telling me what I should believe is wrong or right!" Adam shouted, but his face looked as miserable as Gansey felt. "Now the ley line is awake and we can find Glendower on it and everything will be as it should be."

"We have to call the police. We have to —"

"We don’t have to do anything. We leave Whelk to be worn away, just like he left Noah."

Gansey turned away, sickened. "What about justice?"

"That is justice, Gansey. That’s the real thing. This place is all about being real. About being fair."

This all felt inherently wrong to Gansey. It was like the truth, but turned sideways. He kept looking at it, and looking at it, and it still had a young man dead who looked an awful lot like Noah’s crippled skeleton. And then there was Adam, his appearance unchanged, but still — there was something in his eyes. In the line of his mouth.

Gansey felt loss looming.

Blue and Ronan had emerged from the tree, and Blue’s hand covered her mouth at the sight of Whelk. Ronan had an ugly bruise rising on his temple.

Gansey simply said, "He died."

"I think we should get out of here," Blue said. "Earthquakes and animals and — I don’t know how much of an effect I’m having, but things are …"

"Yes," Gansey said. "We need to go. We can decide what to do about Whelk outside."

Wait.

They all heard the voice this time. In English. None of them moved, unconsciously doing precisely what the voice had asked.

Boy. Scimus quid quaeritis.

(Boy. We know what you’re looking for.)

Though the trees could have meant any of the boys, Gansey felt as if the words were directly particularly at him. Out loud, he said, "What am I looking for?"

In response, there was a babble of Latin, words tumbling over one another. Gansey crossed his arms over his chest, hands fisted. They all looked at Ronan for a translation.

"They said there’ve always been rumors of a king buried somewhere along this spirit road," Ronan said. His eyes held Gansey’s. "They think he may be yours."

Chapter 48

It was a fine, sunny day at the very beginning of June when they buried Noah’s bones. It had taken several weeks for the police department to finish their work with evidence, and so it was the end of the school year before the funeral took place. A lot had taken place in between Whelk’s death and Noah’s funeral. Gansey had recovered his journal from police evidence and quit the rowing team. Ronan successfully scraped through his finals to Aglionby’s satisfaction and unsuccessfully repaired the apartment door lock. Adam, with probable help from Ronan, moved from Monmouth Manufacturing to a room belonging to St. Agnes Church, a subtle distance that affected both boys in different ways. Blue triumphantly welcomed the end of the school year and the beginning of more freedom to explore the ley line. Power failures plagued the town of Henrietta a total of nine times, and the phone system failed almost half as many times. Maura, Persephone, and Calla went through the attic and dismantled Neeve’s things. They’d told Blue that they still weren’t precisely sure what they’d done when they rearranged her mirrors that night.

"We’d meant to disable her," Persephone acknowledged. "But we seem to have disappeared her instead. It’s possible she will reappear at some point."

And slowly their lives found an equilibrium, though it didn’t seem they’d ever return to normal. The ley line was awake and Noah was all but gone. Magic was real, Glendower was real, and something was starting.

"Jane, not to be blunt, but this is a funeral," Gansey said to Blue as she made her way across the field toward them. He and Ronan looked like groomsmen in their impeccable black suits.

Blue, lacking any black wardrobe options, had hastily stitched a few yards of cheap black lace over a green T-shirt she’d converted into a dress a few months earlier. She hissed furiously, "This was all the better I could do!"

"Like Noah cares," Ronan said.

"Did you bring something else for later?" Gansey asked.

"I’m not an idiot. Where’s Adam?"

Gansey said, "He’s at work. He’s coming later."

Noah’s bones were being buried in the Czerny family plot in a remote valley graveyard. His newly dug grave lay near the edge of the long, sloping graveyard on the side of a rocky hill. A tarp covered the fresh heap of dirt from grieving eyes. Noah’s family stood right next to the hole. The man and the two girls wept, but the woman stared off into the trees, dry-eyed. Blue didn’t have to be a psychic, though, to see how sad the woman was. Sad and proud.

Noah’s voice, cool and barely there, whispered in her ear. "Please say something to them."

Blue didn’t reply, but she turned her head in the direction of his voice. She could nearly feel him, standing just behind her shoulder, breath on her neck, hand pressed anxiously to her arm.

"You know I can’t," she replied in a low voice.

"You have to."

"I would look like a crazy person. What good would it do? What could I possibly say?"

Noah’s voice was faint but desperate. His distress hummed through her. "Please."

Blue closed her eyes.

"Tell her I’m sorry I drank her birthday schnapps," Noah whispered.

God, Noah!

"What are you doing?" Gansey reached out and caught her arm as she started toward the grave.

"Humiliating myself!" She tugged free. As Blue approached Noah’s family, she rehearsed ways to make herself sound less insane, but she didn’t like any of them. She’d been with her mother often enough to suspect how this would go. Noah, only for you … She eyed the sad, proud woman. Up close, her makeup was impeccable, her hair carefully rolled at the ends. Everything was knotted and painted and sprayed under control. All of that sadness was shoved so deep inside her that her eyes weren’t even red. Blue wasn’t fooled.

"Mrs. Czerny?"

Both of Noah’s parents’ heads turned to her. Blue self-consciously ran a hand down one of the pieces of lace. "I’m Blue Sargent. I, uh, wanted to say that I’m sorry for your loss. Also, my mother’s a psychic. I have a" — already their expressions were transforming unpleasantly — "message from your son."

Immediately, Mrs. Czerny’s face darkened. She merely shook her head and said, quite calmly, "No, you don’t."

"Please don’t do this," said Mr. Czerny. It was taking all he had to be civil, which was better than she’d expected. Blue felt bad for having interrupted their private moment. "Please just go."

Tell her, whispered Noah.

Blue took a breath. "Mrs. Czerny, he’s sorry for drinking your birthday schnapps."

For a moment there was silence. Mr. Czerny and Noah’s sisters looked from Blue to Noah’s mother. Noah’s father opened his mouth, and then Mrs. Czerny started to cry.

None of them noticed when Blue walked away from the grave.

Later, they dug him up. At the mouth of the access road, Ronan lounged beside his BMW with its hood ajar, acting as both roadblock and look out. Adam operated the backhoe Gansey had rented for the occasion. And Gansey transferred Noah’s bones to a duffel bag while Blue shone the flashlight over them to be certain they were all there. Adam reburied the empty casket, leaving a fresh grave identical to the one they’d begun with.

When they ran back to the BMW, giddy and breathless with their crime, Ronan told Gansey, "This will all come out and bite you in the ass, you know, when you’re running for Congress."

"Shut up and drive, Lynch."

They reburied his bones at the old ruined church, which was Blue’s idea.

"No one will bother them here," she said, "And we know it’s on the ley line. And it’s holy ground."

"Well," said Ronan, "I hope he likes it. I’ve pulled a muscle."

Gansey scoffed, "Doing what? You were standing watch."

"Opening my hood."

After they’d finished covering the last of the bones, they stood quietly inside the ruined walls. Blue stared at Gansey, in particular, his hands in his pockets, his head tilted down toward where they had just interred Noah. It felt like no time and all the time in the world since she’d seen his spirit walk this very path.

Gansey. That’s all there is.

She wouldn’t, she vowed, be the one to kill him.

"Can we go home? This place is so creepy."

Euphoric, they all spun. Noah, rumpled and familiar, was framed in the arched doorway of the church, more solid than Blue remembered ever seeing him. Solid in form, anyway. He peered around the crumbled walls with a timorous expression.

"Noah!" Gansey cried gladly.

Blue hurled her arms around his neck. He looked alarmed, and then pleased, and then he pet the tufts of her hair.

"Czerny," Ronan said, trying out the word.

"No," Noah protested, around Blue’s arm. "I’m serious. This place creeps me the hell out. Can we go?"

Gansey’s face broke into a relieved, easy grin. "Yes, we can go home."

"I’m still not eating pizza," Noah said, backing out of the church with Blue.

Ronan, still in the ruins, looked over his shoulder at them. In the dim light of the flashlights, the tattooed hook that edged out above his collar looked like either a claw or a finger or part of a fleur-de-lis. It was nearly as sharp as his smile.

"I guess now would be a good time to tell you," he said. "I took Chainsaw out of my dreams."