Gansey doesn't stay dead.

"This isn't his first time," Skov says tiredly. They've been kicked out of Swan's room by the nurses, not because visiting hours are over but because they need to actually tend to their patient and Skov and Jiang are apparently nuisances. "Not just-"

"I swear to God if you say in another timeline I will punch you in the dick." Jiang pushes a button on the vending machine and waits for his coffee. The caffeine's not going to be much help. Still, it's something to do.

Spring break has begun and ended. Jiang didn't have any plans. He still would have liked the week off. Now school's started back up and they are just about the most interesting things in it. Fuck Cancun and the Bahamas, Dick Gansey got stabbed. Aglionby is abuzz with rumors of what happened, all of them completely wrong. Most involve Swan going nuts and attacking Gansey.

Very, very few people have heard the other piece of news, that Greenmantle's wife was found wandering Henrietta's woods half out of her mind, covered in dirt and leaves.

The police have kept things quiet per Gansey's request. Piper Greenmantle's husband is being linked to the unsolved murder of Lynch's father. The Greenmantles were acquaintances of Niall Lynch and rife with shady connections. The break-in at Dick Gansey's apartment, the attempt on Declan Lynch's life, the appearance of the Greenmantles in Henrietta, Ronan Lynch's suddenly slipping Latin grades, all are being connected to an effort to erase the Lynches from existence. Gansey and Swan, the police have been informed, were trying to stop Piper Greenmantle from getting to Niall Lynch's son.

It's a good story. Convincing. Largely true. Dick Gansey has a way of making people believe the things he says.

"Wasn't going to," Skov says. He needs sleep even more than Jiang does. There's tension in every line of his body. "You ever notice how fucked up he is? His heart stopped when he was nine or some shit. Had a whole near death experience."

Jiang squints at him, trying to decide if that's true or not. It could be. Weirder things have happened to Dick Gansey.

"Do you think he found that king of his?" he asks Skov as he takes a sip of his coffee. It's what Gansey was down there for in the first place.

"I doubt he'd still be kicking if he didn't."

"True." Jiang wonders if maybe they should have been looking for this king, if it would have changed things if they found him first. Probably not. "Hey, you think the nurses will let us back in now?"


Adam's realizing that he had Swan all wrong.

Swan doesn't think of him as an easy acquaintance. Swan thinks he's a pain in the ass. He respects Adam, is probably honestly glad Adam is out of his parents' house, but he doesn't like Adam.

And Adam's the idiot who brought him flowers.

They were costly but he figured it'd be rude to visit Gansey and ignore the guy who got shot fighting Piper Greenmantle. Adam's got manners.

He's regretting ever learning them.

Swan's scowling at him. Skov's here, which is an unexpected unpleasantness.

(Is it unexpected, though? When's the last time Adam saw these two apart? There's something here he's not seeing that he's not sure he wants to.)

"Can we help you, Parrish?" Skov asks in what can just barely be called a civil tone.

There's a tennis match on the TV. Adam watches the match for a second, looking to make small talk about it. Unfortunately, he knows nothing about tennis.

"I thought I'd bring Swan flowers."

Swan looks fine, fully recovered even. Gansey looks like he's been to hell and back. Ronan's been alternately hovering and pacing furiously. Blue sits and looks stunned. Noah hasn't showed.

"You brought them. Did you need something else?"

"Yes," Adam decides. Ten minutes ago, when he was in the gift shop, he wouldn't have thought to ask. Now he will. "What were you doing in Jesse Dittley's cave?"

"Saving Cheng's ass," Swan replies. "You already know that."

Adam did. "How did you know we would be there? I was under the impression Cheng wasn't a friend of yours."

Skov laughs scathingly.

"He's not," Swan says.

"Why don't you ask what you really want to ask?" Skov says. Threatens, really. "How did we know Dicky was going to bite it if we weren't the ones who were going to do it?"

"I don't care about that," Adam says. "We've known since last April."

"Oho?" Skov asks like that's a thing people actually say. "The psychics tell you that?"

"Not quite." Adam can't believe he brought flowers. He always knew Skov was a dick. Turns out there's a reason he and Swan keep company.

He wants to say something succinct and cruel. Their leader is dead, their little band nearly destroyed. How much more can these losers fall? Swan was hurt helping Henry Cheng, of all people, and they're acting like Adam is the enemy.

"What did I ever do to you?" he asks. "What's your problem with me?"

"I don't have a problem with you," Swan says. "It's Lynch who can go to hell."

Skov's mirth fades. He notices Adam noticing.

"Bit of free advice, Parrish," Skov says, dropping the frat boy act. "Keep Lynch away from us."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Keep Lynch out of our way for the next few months. Until graduation, at least."

"That's not advice."

Skov flashes him an unkind smile. "You don't want my actual advice, bro."

How perceptive is Skov?

It's a question Adam should have asked a long time ago. He's right, Adam wants to know how they knew about Gansey. Just…not as much as he wants to know how they got through Jesse Dittley's cave unharmed and found them. Not as much as he wants to know why it never occurred to him, even after finding out about Prokopenko, even after being bemused by Skov for years, that Kavinsky might not be the last secret Henrietta was hiding.

"No," Adam says slowly. "I suppose I don't. I'm going to leave now."

"That sounds like a good idea."

Adam shouldn't be backing down from this guy. Skov has nothing on him. Cabeswater would protect him, if it came to that.

He isn't backing down, though. He's rearranging his energies. Skov isn't worth it. He's something, all right. Very likely magical or tapped into magic. There's a difference. Swan is something, too. Kavinsky certainly was. If your mind was flexible enough, so was Prokopenko, that sorry schmuck.

Persephone wouldn't have wasted energy trying to figure them out. She would have told Adam to think wider. The world is so much more than little, insignificant people.

Whatever these two are, they aren't a threat. Adam might be a threat to them but they aren't to him. Nothing is, anymore.

They saved Henry Cheng, for Chrissake. They went and risked their lives for a boy Adam wouldn't have done the same for. Does it matter why they did it? If Adam was back in that cave and the choice was get Gansey out or Cheng…well.

If they hadn't been there, there might have been two dead that day. There had only been one favor.

Adam knows Cheng was never in any danger. Because Skov, Swan, and Jiang were there. Because the boy Neeve grabbed and stuck a knife into was fated to be Gansey. Because at that moment Cheng was in the company of three boys who wanted him alive. Because they somehow knew Cheng was going to be there even though Gansey had only asked the night before.

It doesn't matter how or what they knew. They were there at the right time and place.

Adam can live not knowing.

He heads towards the door. From here, he'll go back to Gansey's room. He didn't get Gansey flowers.

Gansey wouldn't have wanted them and they would have gotten into a minor argument over the price of them. Blue and Ronan already smuggled in a mint pot in instead. Helen brought him an even bigger one. Gansey offended her by saying he preferred Blue's and Ronan's, since it came from Monmouth.

"Parrish," Swan calls. Adam turns back. "Don't think we don't know what you are."

Adam does not smile but, if he did, it would be with the force of an ancient forest. Whatever these two are, Cabeswater is greater.

There are no threats anymore.

"Good."