Now he waited in the car at a faded gas station outside of Henrietta. He couldn’t tell if the pulse in his palms was his heartbeat or the ley line.
“I know what you mean,” Noah said from the backseat. He was draped over the passenger headrest like a sweater with a body still in it. Adam had nearly forgotten he was there, because he hadn’t been invited. Not because he was unwanted, but because he was dead, and the deceased couldn’t be counted on to show up at specific times.
“Did you just reply to my thoughts?”
“I don’t think so.”
Adam couldn’t remember if he’d spoken out loud. He didn’t think he had.
The car rocked as a farm truck trundled by on the highway. Everything about this area was worn. The gas station was a survivor from decades past, with tin signs in the window and chickens for sale behind it. The farm across the road was faded but charming, like a yellowed newspaper.
He turned Greenmantle’s blackmail over in his mind. It had to be bulletproof. He hadn’t told Gansey; he hadn’t told Blue. He’d convinced Ronan of it and brought the Gray Man into it, but in the end, it was all on him if Greenmantle exploded in their faces.
“I think it’s ready,” Noah said.
“Stop that. Stop. It’s creepy.”
He shot a glance to Noah in the rearview mirror and regretted it; the dead boy was more frightening in reflections. Much less living.
Noah knew it; he ducked out of the mirror’s view.
From outside the car, Blue’s voice rose. “How would you feel if I reduced you to your legs?”
Adam and Noah craned to look out the back window.
Blue’s voice came again. “No. No. How about you see it my way? How about you don’t reduce me to a commodity and then, when I ask you not to, tell me it’s a compliment and I should be glad for it?”
Noah’s mouth made an oooo shape.
“Yeah,” Adam agreed, climbing out.
Blue stood a few feet away. She wore a big boxy T-shirt, teal shorts, combat boots, and socks that came up over her knees. Only four inches of bare skin were visible, but they were a really nice four inches.
An old man wearing a seed cap was saying, “Little lady, one day you’ll remember the days people told you that you had nice legs as a good memory.”
Adam braced for the explosion.
It was nails and dy***ite. “Good — memory? Oh, I wish I were as ignorant as you! What happiness! There are girls who kill themselves over negative body image and you —”
“Is there a problem here?” Adam broke in.
The man seemed relieved. People were always pleased to see clean, muted Adam, the deferential Southern voice of reason. “Your girlfriend’s quite a firecracker.”
Adam stared at the man. Blue stared at Adam.
He wanted to tell her it wasn’t worth it — that he’d grown up with this sort of man and knew they were untrainable — but then she’d throw the thermos at Adam’s head and probably slap that guy in the mouth. It was amazing that she and Ronan didn’t get along better, because they were different brands of the same impossible stuff.
“Sir,” Adam started — Blue’s eyebrows spiked — “I think maybe your mama didn’t teach you how to talk to women.”
The old man shook his head at Adam, like in pity.
Adam added, “And she’s not my girlfriend.”
Blue flashed him a brilliant look of approval, and then she got into the car with a dramatic door slam Ronan would have approved of.
“Look, kid,” the old man started.
Adam interrupted, “Your fuel door’s open, by the way.”
He climbed back into his little, shitty car, the one Ronan called the Hondayota. He felt heroic for no good reason. Blue simmered righteously as they pulled out of the station. For a few moments, there was nothing but the labored sound of the little car’s breathing.
Then Noah said, “You do have nice legs, though.”
Blue swung at him. A helpless laugh escaped Adam, and she hit his shoulder, too.
“Did you get the water at least?” he asked.
She sloshed the thermos to demonstrate success. “I also brought some jet. It’s supposed to be good protection while you’re scrying.”
“We’re scrying?” Noah sat up straight.
Adam struggled to explain. “Cabeswater speaks one language, and I speak another. I can get the broad idea from reading the cards. But it’s harder to get the specifics of how to fix the alignment. So I’m scrying. I do it all the time. It’s just efficient, Noah.”
“An efficient way to get your na**d soul stolen by forces of raw evil, maybe,” Noah said.
Blue exchanged a look with Adam. “I don’t believe in raw evil.”
Noah said, “It doesn’t care if you believe in it.”
She turned in her seat to face him. “I don’t normally like to point out when you’re being creepy. But you are.”
The dead boy retreated farther into the backseat; the air warmed marginally as he did. “He already called me creepy today.”
“Tell me more about the aligning stuff,” Blue said to Adam. “Tell me why it wants you to.”
“I don’t understand how it matters.”
She made a noise of profound exasperation. “Even putting aside every single spiritual consideration, or, or, mythological consideration, or anything that actually means anything, you’re manipulating this massive energy source that seems to communicate directly into your head in a different language, and that, to me, seems like something I would have a lot of questions about if I were you!”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But I do. You’re driving all the way out here, and you don’t even ask why?”
Adam didn’t reply, because his reply wouldn’t have been civil.
His silence, however, seemed to be worse. She snapped, “If you didn’t want to talk, I don’t know why you asked me if I wanted to come!”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
“Right, who wants someone who thinks along with them!”
He reined himself in, with effort. With only a little barbed wire in his tone, he said, “I just want to get this done.”
“Just put me out here. I’ll walk back.”
He slammed on the brakes. “Don’t think I won’t.”
“Do it, then!” She already had her hand on the door handle.
“Guys,” Noah wailed.