The Dream Cages #7

“You don't scry,” said Blue.

“But I dream,” Ronan said, adding because Adam had once said it to him and it sounded good, “with intention.”

Blue made a face that suggested she didn't think it sounded that impressive. “So you're just going to what? Lie down on the floor and fall asleep?”

“Let me understand this,” Gansey put in, and Ronan realized that if their gang were a car Gansey was not so much the engine—the assumption Ronan had always made, that Gansey was the one running things—as the brakes. Ronan knew he needed brakes, at least some of the time. This was not that time.

“Let me understand this,” Gansey said again. “When you dream, you go to Cabeswater, don't you? And when Adam scries, he goes...” He frowned and turned to Blue. She shrugged.

“I don't scry either,” she said. “But from everything I've heard, it's dark. And weird.” She cocked an eye at Ronan. “Not so different from your head, I guess.”

“We don't have time for this,” Ronan said, not rising to the bait. Why were they stalling?

“There's a chair,” Henry said quietly. They all turned toward him, and he pointed at a sagging vinyl chair that had been shoved into the corner of the room. “So you don't have to lie on the floor. Though I dunno, man, the floor might be more comfortable.”

“If you go to Cabeswater, how is that helpful?” Gansey pressed. “Then we've lost two of you.”

You haven't lost anything, Ronan thought, but he couldn't say it, didn't want to, because saying it would be to admit things had changed. Priorities had shifted. Allegiances... They would always be friends, brothers even, but they wouldn't ever be as close as they used to be. Ronan knew this was normal, but he didn't have to like it.

Aloud he said, “I won't be lost. I'll just be asleep. Not out of my body like...”

Every head swiveled in Adam's direction.

“Just... take care of the paperwork,” Ronan told Gansey. “I'll be right back.” He said the last part with more bravado than he actually felt, and he was fairly certain Gansey knew it. But Gansey only nodded and looked again at the stack of papers he still held.

“There are some tests we can request, stuff just to keep the doctors busy while we...”

Keep you busy, too, thought Ronan. He wondered, fleetingly, if it had been a mistake to call them. But no, he couldn't have done this alone. Or maybe he could have, but he didn't want to.

He flung himself into the chair. Henry had been right, the floor probably would have been more comfortable. Less lumpy. But Ronan had cultivated the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime. He threw his head back into one corner of the chair and his legs over the opposite arm, and almost immediately the world began to turn gray around the edges.

Hang on, Adam, I'm coming.