As much as Blue wanted to see the world, she thought she could do without so many cities. Henry had driven them in through Boston, and Gansey had practically drooled on the passenger-side window, rattling off every historical fact he could think of—and there were a lot of them.
It was a little too much for Blue. She liked her forests, her open fields, her beaches and mountains and wildlife. She wanted a rainforest, not a concrete jungle.
She completely understood what had brought Adam to Cambridge, though. The Boston area was about as different from Henrietta as it got, and all Adam had wanted was to get away.
Henry hit the brakes as a car ahead of them pulled out of a street parking space, then punched the accelerator to grab it before anyone else could. He parallel parked flawlessly, turned off the car, and twisted around to grin at Blue.
"What do you think?" Henry asked.
"I think I miss my trees," Blue muttered, kicking open the back door.
They were parked just outside of Harvard's main campus. Gansey and Henry had both been there before, for one thing or another, and Blue trailed them across the grass to a wide building she assumed must be the dorm.
Gansey caught the door as a student exited the building and held it open for Blue and Henry. They slid past him into the hallway of the dorm.
Gansey glanced at something on his phone, then led the way down the hall to a staircase. Blue took the lead, darting past the boys on their way up the stairs. She ducked through the door on the fifth floor, found a place to wait by the elevator bank, and watched the students coming and going until Henry appeared in the stairwell door.
"Usually, Blue," he said, "It's considered polite to wait for your traveling companions."
"Walk faster next time," Blue said.
Gansey was just behind Henry, and they set off down the hallway, scanning the numbers posted on each door. Gansey stopped them outside of number 311.
When Gansey knocked, the boy who answered the door was definitely not Adam.
"Um, hi," he said. "Do I know you?"
Blue glanced first at Gansey, then Henry. They both looked as confused as she felt.
"We're Adam's friends," Blue said. "Adam Parrish?"
"Oh!" The boy smiled. "I'm Fletcher. His roommate. Adam's not here, though. There was some kind of emergency, and he left town—what, two days ago? Said he'd be back in a week, tops."
"Did he say where he was going?" Gansey asked.
Fletcher shrugged. "Out of town. I assume he went home."
Gansey glanced at his phone again. "He didn't mention that to us. Shame. We could have met him there instead of driving all this way." He laughed. Blue could tell from the slight tension in his shoulders that it was forced. "Let us know if you hear from him, alright? Here's my number." He fished a notebook and pen from his pocket, tore out a blank page, scribbled something down, and handed it to Fletcher.
"Sure thing," Fletcher said. "Did you want me to call him, or…?"
"That's alright," Gansey said. "We'll take care of it."
"Right." Fletcher stood in his doorway and watched as they headed back down the hall to the elevator.
o-o-o-o-o
They sat in the car, Henry behind the wheel, Gansey in the passenger seat, and Blue in the middle of the back. Gansey was fiddling with his phone, waiting for a text or call to come through.
"Nothing," he said. "There's nothing."
Blue sighed and fished her own phone from her pocket. "Ronan doesn't know where he is?"
"If he does, he's not planning on sharing the information," Gansey said. "Or he lost his phone."
"You know him better than I do," Henry said softly. "If he didn't go to the Barns, where would he have gone?"
"That's just it," Gansey said. "There's nowhere else. All Adam wanted was to get as far from Henrietta as possible. He wanted to leave the whole state behind. He goes back because—"
"Because of Ronan," Blue finished. "There's nothing else in Virginia for him."
"Ronan," Gansey murmured. He was staring out the windshield, eyes glassy. Henry twisted around to face Blue.
"Is he alright?"
"Who knows?"
"Ronan!" Gansey cried. "That's it! Remember, Blue—" His gaze snapped back to Blue, and there it was, the look Blue loved so much. A mystery solved, another step on the path illuminated. It had been a little while since she'd seen it last. "Ronan was planning on moving here. Weren't he and Adam looking at apartments?"
"I think it was just Ronan looking," Blue said. "And it didn't work out. Because, you know, murder crabs."
"Right," Gansey said. "But it's an empty apartment."
Henry shifted the car into drive. "Where to, then?"
o-o-o-o-o
Blue wasn't sure why it surprised her that Henry knew how to pick locks. "You're teaching me how to do that," she said as he backed away from the apartment's front door, two of Blue's hairpins in hand.
"Gladly," he said, passing the pins back to her with a wink.
Adam was sitting in the front room of the apartment. His tarot deck, the one that had once been Persephone's, sat next to a plastic salad bowl full of what Blue thought was cherry cool-aid.
Adam's eyes were glassy. When Blue knelt beside him and took his hand, he didn't so much as blink.
"Adam," she said softly. "You fucking idiot."
"What's wrong with him?" Henry had knelt at Adam's other side, farther from him than Blue was. He peered into Adam's face, shuddered, and looked away.
"He's separated his soul from his body," Gansey said. "Blue, are you sure you aren't—I mean, are you amplifying this? Would that make it worse?"
"I don't think it can get any worse," Blue said. With her free hand, she fumbled in her pocket for the Swiss Army knife Calla had given her before she left. She flicked the blade open, grabbed Adam's wrist, and sliced the knife across his right forearm. Blood welled, dripping onto the wooden floor. Adam didn't even twitch.
"Now what?" Henry asked. He was wringing his hands as he hovered over them, helpless. Blue knew how he felt—she almost wanted to join him.
"Gansey," she said. "Do the thing."
Gansey blinked at her. "The… what?"
"The thing," Blue snapped. "Tell him to wake up."
Gansey hesitated. "I can try, but we're so far from the ley line—I don't even know if I can still do that."
"I'm your ley line," Blue said, reaching for his hand. "And you were resurrected by a magical forest. That has to be good for something."
"You mean besides saving his life?" Henry muttered.
Gansey twisted his fingers through Blue's, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His eyelids fluttered open. He gazed directly at Adam, squeezed Blue's fingers, and said, "Adam. Come back."
Adam's eyes opened.
He gasped, his fingers clawing at Blue and Gansey. Blue grabbed his hand with her free one. Adam shuddered, his head falling so his face was screened off by his hair.
"Adam," Blue said.
Adam seemed to come back to himself all at once. His spine straightened, his head tilted back, and he met first Blue's gaze, then Gansey's, then Henry's.
"We need to go," he said. "Back to Virginia."
"Why?" Blue asked, scrambling to her feet. Adam was already up and moving, gathering his tarot cards, taking the scrying bowl to the kitchen sink.
"What's in Virginia, Adam?" Gansey asked.
Adam shook his head. "I don't know. Something bad. Last time I went looking for it, it saw me. This time, all I saw was Ronan."
Blue, Henry, and Gansey all exchanged glances. Henry reached into his pocket and pulled out the car keys.
"Well. I suppose our road trip will have to take a brief pause, then."