“Hello,” Declan said.
Adam’s tone was dry. “Everyone in your family likes to make a surprise entrance, don’t they?”
Declan smiled blandly and tapped the side of his phone on the table, glancing around at the surroundings with the same judgmental gaze he used when double-checking Matthew’s room-cleaning abilities.
“Fletcher,” Adam said, “would you let the line know that we’re done for the night?”
The other student pushed out of a chair and, waving his own phone, said, “Of course. You should know Gillian’s still going on about break. That’ll be the topic of debate.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
They were left discreetly alone.
“Aglionby would be so proud to see you using all your talents here at Harvard,” Declan said. He turned over the top card of the deck. The writing on the bottom read Seven of Swords, but the art was too wiggly and complicated for Matthew to focus on.
“Aglionby would be proud to see two of its students here at Harvard at the same time,” Adam replied evenly.
“I see you lost your accent.”
“I see you lost your jacket.”
This all felt like a conversation in another language, one that Matthew would never speak. He couldn’t give too much thought to that, however, because suddenly he felt really weird.
His head went weird first, then his legs. His head felt sluggish, but his legs felt the opposite. That walky feeling usually meant he was about to forget what he was doing and end up someplace entirely different.
Nope, he told his legs. Be like a normal person.
Declan and Adam had moved on from whatever they’d been talking about and were instead talking about Declan being a bit of a gossip sensation, according to Adam’s latest conversation with Mr. Gray, the Lynch son calling in favors and making himself useful in the market, going legit for a year. Rumor was people were courting him for jobs. Were they? Matthew couldn’t tell if he should have been able to tell that by Declan’s constant brisk texting and phone calls.
“Even if that were true,” Declan said, “I’m not getting into that world.”
Adam laughed in a hollow way. “You aren’t in it already?”
Declan didn’t flinch, and for the first time, Matthew thought he might be seeing the situation in a complicated, real, grown-up way. Because when he looked at Declan’s blank, businesslike expression, he thought about how he could have just taken it at face value. But instead he saw how, if he squinted, he could see a little tension around Declan’s lips, a little tilt to his chin. He saw how this secret language showed that his older brother was both flattered and tempted by the statement.
“The other rumor is that Ronan is into some kind of bio-weapons,” Adam said, and for the first time, a little wrinkle appeared in between his fair eyebrows, making him look more like the boy Matthew knew from before. “Leading Moderators on a merry chase with capital-U Unexplained weaponry.”
In a bland voice, Declan asked, “Have you spoken to him recently?”
Instead of answering, Adam replied, “Do you know anything about Bryde yet?”
Then Matthew lost a bit of time, which he only realized because when he next came to, he was sitting in a chair by the window with no recollection of how he’d gotten there. Adam was standing close to Declan and they were muttering in low voices. One of them was saying Matthew.
“Matthew, seriously,” Declan said. “Wake up.”
Once Declan had spoken, Matthew realized the voice saying Matthew before hadn’t been Declan’s voice. It had been that voice he sometimes heard when he lost himself. The voice he sought when he threw himself into the security system at the end of the driveway.
Matthew blinked up at Declan. He was so frustrated that he couldn’t follow his conversation with Adam. It seemed like a very important, grown-up conversation. He tried to recapture the mindset that had allowed him to decode Declan’s expression before, but it all felt too complex.
“He looks strange,” Adam said. Then he seemed to realize this was rude, because he directed his next question at Matthew. “What’s wrong with you?”
“This is what happens when your life is tied to my brother’s,” Declan said. “God knows what he’s up to.”
Because the problem wasn’t truly with Matthew. He was like this because of a problem with his dreamer.
“Is he normally this bad?”
No. He wasn’t usually this bad unless …
Declan said, “Matthew. Matthew. Matthew.”
Matthew.
The wizard’s tower and the wizard’s tarot cards and the wizard himself were melting away. All of Matthew’s thoughts were melting away.
Wherever Ronan was, he was in deep trouble.
Hennessy always dreamt of the Lace.
Left to her own devices, it was always the Lace.
Nightwash and blood and a barn full of dead turkeys behind them, nightwash and blood and a night full of desperation before them, because Hennessy couldn’t dream of anything but the Lace.
The nearly invisible car burst through the night as Bryde tersely directed her down one road and then another and then another. Ronan was silent in the backseat. Every once in a while, she glanced over her shoulder to see if he’d died. Hard to tell. He was sprawled exactly as he had been thrown before. Dying people and dead people looked very similar.
“Maybe it’s too late,” she said.
Bryde’s voice was thin as wire. “I would know if it’s too late. Turn here.”
She wondered if she would feel sad if Ronan died. Angry. Something. Because right now she didn’t feel anything at all. She didn’t care where they were going. She didn’t care if he was dead when they got there. She didn’t care if Bryde lost patience with her and left her standing by the roadside. She didn’t care if Jordan was angry that she hadn’t called to let her know how things were. Nothing felt like it would be particularly good or bad, except for sleeping an empty sleep, free of the Lace, free of everything. Empty sleep forever, never waking up. Not death, because that would ruin Jordan’s life. Just endless empty pause. That would be good.
“Left, left,” Bryde said. “Hurry up. Stop over there. This will have to do.”
Hennessy didn’t feel much in the way of any ley energy, but she followed his directions. Burrito lumped down a dark, unpaved road that dead-ended at a small ridge overgrown with stringy, limp grass. The headlights glinted off water beyond it.
“Help me drag him,” Bryde said.
Ronan looked dreadful, awash with black, slumped in the backseat of the invisible car. It wasn’t the oozing nightwash that made him look bad, though. It was the slackness of his face. The stiffness. He already looked dead.
“What about his chicken?” Hennessy asked. His raven was a small pile of unmoving feathers.
“Leave her,” Bryde said. “Bring your mask.”
Her mask. She never wanted to see it again. “So it’s a Lace dream you’re after having?”
“We don’t have time for petulance,” Bryde said. He was more agitated than Hennessy had ever seen him. “Imagine you were lost in your Lace, and there was no one to find you, ever. That is where he is. Deep. We might not get him back, even if there’s enough ley power to reverse the nightwash. Do you understand? He won’t have any use for this body the way he is now. He just goes out and out and out, a ball of yarn thrown into space.”