The Raven King
Page 81

“Wake. His. Bones,” echoed Henry. “I really don’t mean to sound like the naysayer here, as you are all clearly experts at this, but.”
But.
Ronan said, “Then let’s do it. Let’s do it fast. I hate this place. It feels like it’s eating my life.”
This vehemence served to focus Gansey’s clouded thoughts.
“Yes,” he said, although he didn’t feel remotely certain. “Let’s do it. Perhaps the cave of bones was a practice run for this and that’s why Cabeswater led us there.” The bones hadn’t stayed alive long in that cave, but it didn’t matter, he supposed. They only needed Glendower to be awake long enough to grant a favour.
Gansey’s heart stumbled inside him at the idea of trying to extract both a favour and a purpose for his existence before Glendower turned to dust.
Better than nothing.
So the teens attempted to assemble as they had in the cave of bones, with Henry standing back, curious or wary. Adam splayed his fingers on the tomb walls, feeling for some semblance of energy to project. He moved around and around the tomb, clearly unhappy with what he was finding. Eventually, he stopped where he had begun and put his hand on the wall.
“Here is as good as any place,” he said, but he didn’t sound hopeful. Blue took his hand. Ronan crossed his arms. Gansey carefully put his hand on Glendower’s chest.
It felt pretend. Ridiculous. Gansey tried to summon up intention, but he felt empty. His knees were knocking, not out of fear or anger, but some more vast emotion that he refused to acknowledge as grief.
Grief meant he’d already given up.
“Wake up,” he said. Then, again, trying a little harder, “Wake up.”
But they were just words.
“Wake,” Gansey said again. “Up.”
A voice and nothing more. Vox et praeterea nihil.
The first moment of realization was giving way to a second, and third, and each new minute revealed some facet that Gansey had not yet let himself consider. There would be no waking of Glendower, so there was no favour. Noah’s life would not be begged for, the demon would not be bargained away. There may have never been magic involved with Glendower; his corpse may have been brought to the New World only to be buried out of reach of the English; it was possible that Gansey needed to notify the historian community of this find, if it was even findable by normal means. If Glendower had always been dead, it could not have been him who spared Gansey.
If Glendower had not saved Gansey’s life, he did not know who to thank, or who to be, or how to live.
No one said anything.
Gansey touched the skull, the raised cheekbone, the face of his promised and ruined king. Everything was dry and gray.
It was over.
This man was not going to ever be anything to Gansey.
“Gansey?” Blue asked.
Every minute was giving way to another and then another, and slowly it sank into his heart, all the way to the centre:
It was over.
 
 
Gansey had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.
Was this all there was?
They had emerged into sun. The tricky ley line had stolen hours from them without them feeling it, and now they sat in the tattered Green House, just a few hundred yards away from where Gansey had died. Gansey sat in the ballroom, leaning against the wall, all of him contained in a square of sunlight coming through the dusty, many-paned windows. He rubbed a hand over his forehead, although he wasn’t tired – he was so awake that he was certain the ley line had somehow affected that as well.
It was over.
Glendower was dead.
Destined for greatness, the psychics had said. One in Stuttgart. One in Chicago. One in Guadalajara. Two in London. Where was it, then? Perhaps he’d used it all up. Perhaps the greatness had only ever been the ability to find historical trinkets. Perhaps the greatness was only in what he could be to others.
“Let’s get out of here,” Gansey said.
They started back to Henrietta, the two cars travelling close together.
It only took a few minutes for Gansey’s phone to regain charge after being being plugged into the cigarette lighter, and it only took a few seconds after that for texts to begin pouring in – all the texts that had come in while they were underground. A buzz sounded for each; the phone did not stop buzzing.
They had missed the fund-raiser.
The ley line had not taken hours from them. It had taken a day from them.
Gansey had Blue read the texts to him until he couldn’t bear it any more. They began with polite query, wondering if he was running a few minutes late. Wandered into concern, contemplating why he wasn’t answering his phone. Descended into irritation, uncertain why he would think it was appropriate to be late to a school function. And then skipped right over anger and headed into hurt.
I know you have your own life, his mother said to his voicemail. I was just hoping to be part of it for a few hours.
Gansey felt the sword go right through his ribs and out the other side.
Before, he had been replaying the failure to wake Glendower over and over again. Now he couldn’t stop replaying the image of his family waiting at Aglionby for him. His mother thinking he was just running late. His father thinking he was hurt. Helen – Helen knowing he’d been doing something for himself, instead. Her only text had come at the end of the night: I suppose the king will always win, won’t he?
He would have to call them. But what would he say?
Guilt was building in his chest and his throat and behind his eyes.
“You know what?” Henry said eventually. “Pull over. There.”
Gansey silently pulled the Fisker in to the rest stop that he had indicated; the BMW pulled in behind them. They parked in the single row of spots in front of the fancy brick building that held toilets; they were the only cars there. The sun had given way to clouds; it looked like rain.
“Now get out,” Henry said.
Gansey looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“Stop driving,” he said. “I know you need to. You’ve needed to since we left. Get. Out.”
Gansey was about to protest this, but he discovered that his words felt rather unsteady in his mouth. It was like his shaking knees in the tomb; the wobble had snuck up on him.
So he said nothing and he got out. Very quietly. He thought about walking into the toilets, but at the last moment veered to the picnic area beside the rest stop. Out of view of the cars. Very calmly. He made it to one of the picnic benches, but didn’t sit on it. Instead, he slowly sat down just in front of it and curled his hands over his head. He folded himself down small enough that his forehead brushed the grass.