Warning: There's mild body horror in Ronan's dream in this chapter, but nothing worse than what's in canon.

It was impossible for Ronan to remember how beautiful Cabeswater was when he wasn't standing in it. Something about the jeweled shimmer of its leaves and the precise sound his feet made when he crunched along a path was lost in its translation to memory, which frustrated Ronan in the same way he was frustrated when he read a Latin passage that was impossible to capture in English.

But he was standing in Cabeswater now, and he remembered all over again.

He almost couldn't bear it, the brush of a tree's bark against his fingertips, the glow of sunlight filtering through the canopy, the haunting distant call of a bird Ronan couldn't name. The rest of reality was trapped in a dusky and unpredictable fall, but here, Ronan basked in the smell of impending summer. It was beautiful. It was peaceful. It was flawless, except that it felt strange to be here alone. He hadn't been alone here for a long time. There was always Adam, and Gansey, and Noah and Blue, and even Orphan Girl if no one else. It pricked at the walls of his stomach, being here alone. But Ronan wasn't too worried about it, really, because he was on his way to a very specific clearing, and his mother was waiting there and he couldn't wait to—

The knowledge that Aurora was dead slammed into him with the force of a thousand night horrors, and with it came the knowledge that Ronan was in a dream. The needles in his stomach sharpened to daggers, and Ronan burned with the terrifying realization that he hadn't known he was dreaming, he hadn't known, and hadn't he once told Adam that he was supposed to know when he was dreaming and when he was awake, wasn't that part of being the Greywaren?

The sound of a branch snapping overhead reached Ronan's ears, and he jumped backwards just before the branch smacked into the ground where he'd stood. It was rotted and oozing black sludge, and Ronan felt like he was about to throw up. Fear cropped up again, an aching demanding consuming fear that pounded in his chest alongside his heart, and against his better judgment, Ronan looked up.

"Gansey?"

And it was.

He was sitting in the tree with the freshly broken branch, looking as bemused by his existence as Ronan felt. "Ronan," Gansey said, voice tilting between scholarly Gansey and kingly Gansey. "Why is this tree dying?"

Shaking, Ronan reached out a hand to touch the bark of the rotting tree, and knowledge skidded into him again, raw and angry and terrible. The trees whispered it in English, just in case he didn't get the message in Latin. Demon demon demon. Ronan's eyes widened, and he stumbled back and looked up at Gansey again. "You have to get out of there!" he shouted, his voice hoarse and unconvincing. Nothing like Gansey's. He didn't know how to make it like Gansey's. He didn't know how to get Gansey to listen to him. "Cabeswater isn't safe anymore. It's dying, and it's all because—"

Then the branch under Gansey snapped too, and Gansey hit the ground with a thud that was a thousand times worse than the sound the branch made. It was even a thousand times worse than the groan the tree made as it twisted into itself, black sap leaking out of every crevice, bark shedding like dead skin, until it finally twisted into itself so much that it disappeared.

Ronan's ears popped. Unmade.

He surged towards Gansey then, desperate to fling him out of Cabeswater before it was too late, but it was already too late. Gansey turned to look at him, but he no longer had eyes. His face was a blank slate of black and white lines, twitching and shifting in a way that told Ronan there was nothing he could do about them. The remnant of Gansey's face made a noise before seeming to realize that he had no mouth and therefore could not form words. All that was left was a high-pitched whine, barely noticeable at the edge of Ronan's consciousness, that seemed to emanate from the spot where Gansey's face used to be.

Ronan dropped to his knees, breaking and broken, vaguely aware of the hoarse scream that tore out of his mouth as he watched Gansey shudder and tear and collapse into nothing. His closest friend, his brother, his best tether to survival and humanity and the future and all the things Gansey had wanted for him, shook apart in front of him, but the high-pitched whine remained, a cruel irony that mocked him as it shifted from the edge of his consciousness to its aching center, strong and insistent and unstoppable. And then Ronan was being unmade too, and he couldn't even bring himself to care. He watched with a sort of detached fascination as his skin split open and black sap found its way through the cracks, dark and glaring and thicker than blood. The high-pitched noise condensed into a sharp point that drilled into his forehead. Just as Ronan thought that the noise would pierce through his skull, it lost form and turned into words.

"Ronan! Ronan! RONAN FUCKING LYNCH, WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

Ronan woke up frozen, like this had been the same as any other dream.

It had not felt the same as any other dream.

Ronan watched from above as Adam hovered over him, some sort of fabric in his hands as he scrubbed at the black ooze that Ronan had brought back with him. He didn't know how long he stayed like that, unable to soothe Adam's anxiety, before he felt a tug and slammed back into his body. Aching from head to toe had never felt so good. It was a firm reassurance that he was alive, alive, alive, and his arms were still there and his face was still there and he hadn't been reduced to a blur of white and black lines.

"Hey," Ronan said weakly, because nothing seemed adequate.

Adam's scrubbing slowed and then stopped. "This is the same stuff that leaked out of that tree in Cabeswater," he said, his voice low and shaking. "That came out of you yesterday. I thought we were done with the demon. I thought—"

"We are done," Ronan said, and when Adam looked incredulous, Ronan wrapped his fingers around Adam's wrist and held on tight. "We are, okay? This"—he gestured at the ooze on Adam's cloth—"is because of my own demons, not Cabeswater's. That demon is gone."

Adam exhaled slowly. "Okay," he said. "Okay." He didn't try to peel Ronan's fingers off him. Ronan wasn't sure he would have let him.

Ronan glanced over at Chainsaw's cage, mostly for something to do with his eyes. Adam's were too blue; looking into them was distracting. "I dreamed about Cabeswater," he said.

Adam was too casual when he asked, "And?"

Ronan's eyes flicked to his own arm. His wristbands were covered in black sludge, but it hadn't cracked his skin open like it had in his dream. That was something. His voice was too casual when he said, "Be glad this shit was the only stuff I brought back with me."

But of course he hadn't brought back Gansey, or the thing that had looked like Gansey. He couldn't bring back an object that had been torn out of existence.

At the thought, Ronan pulled himself into a seated position, still aching all over. His skin may not have split, but it still felt like it had. His body was a single scream of protest. Alive, he reminded himself, and stood. "Have you seen Gansey yet?"

Adam frowned. "No. I was a little distracted by all"—he made a vague gesture with the dirty cloth—"this."

A knot of worry formed in Ronan's chest, hard and irrational. "I'm going to go see him." To make sure he's still alive.

Adam clenched the dirty cloth in his fist, and then let it drop to the ground with a sigh. "Me too."

They stepped into the main room of Monmouth, and Gansey was asleep.

But it wasn't the calm, restful kind of sleep that Ronan had seen Adam enjoy once or twice. (Or three times. Or… it was just nice to see sleep that didn't end in night horrors and impossible objects. And he almost always woke up before Adam did anyway.)

It was the kind of sleep that ended in tangled covers and thrashing and Blue on the floor beside Gansey's bed, holding his hand and shouting his name and trying to avoid getting decked by a rebellious elbow. Ronan probably would have heard them sooner if his head wasn't still filled with the high-pitched whine that he now recognized as dread. Ignoring his stiff limbs, Ronan let go of Adam's wrist and strode forward and held down Gansey's legs and leaned over and yelled WAKE UP, YOU ASSHOLE into his ear until he did.

Then Ronan had to sit down, because his head was ringing. But he made sure to sit down with attitude, arm with the wristbands flung carelessly over his left knee and his right leg sprawled on the ground, because Gansey wasn't used to nightmares like Ronan was, and he was the one who needed to be the focus of attention right now.

The focus of attention was currently blinking at them like he thought he was still dreaming. Blue laid her hand on his knee, and Ronan felt a fierce, unexpected stab of joy at seeing them openly together. They deserved some damn happiness for once. He hoped they would get it. "You're okay, Gansey," Blue said quietly.

Gansey smiled at them, and if Ronan didn't know him so well, it would have been convincing. "Of course I'm okay, Jane," he said. "It was just a dream."

"Dreams aren't just anything," Adam said before Ronan could. "Do you"—his eyes flicked to Blue's hand on Gansey's knee, and Ronan was relieved to see that he didn't look jealous—"want to talk about it?"

"Nothing to talk about," Gansey said breezily. "I'm just going to go shower, and then… gelato for breakfast?"

Blue flinched at the word gelato, and everyone noticed. "What?" Adam said. "What happened?"

Blue fidgeted with the edge of her fraying crocheted sweater. "I called my house last night after you all went to sleep. Calla came and picked me up."

Gansey's eyebrows furrowed. "We could have dropped you off. Why didn't you say that you wanted to go home?"

"Because I wanted to be here too," Blue said, like it was obvious. "Anyway, Calla brought me home, and I thought almost everyone would be asleep already, but they were all still awake and sitting in the kitchen, and I came in and my mom told me . . . Noah started staying at 300 Fox Way a few days ago, you know. I think he needed the extra energy. But yesterday, around the time that Gansey . . ." She swallowed hard and focused on the stitching along her sleeve. "Noah disappeared."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Ronan plucked at his wristbands and said, "Fuck that. Noah disappears all the time. That doesn't mean anything."

"Yes, it does," Blue said, and her voice was so quiet. Blue wasn't supposed to be quiet. She was supposed to be loud, like Ronan. Harsh, like Ronan. Unapologetic, like Ronan. The daggers reappeared in Ronan's stomach. "My mom says he was in the reading room, halfway there and halfway not, when all of a sudden he kind of . . . froze. And then he looked at something my mom couldn't see, and then he said. . . ." She sucked in a deep breath. "You will live because of Glendower. Someone else is dying on the ley line when they should not, and so you will live when you should not."

Next to her, Gansey went very still. "He said," and the words came out in a shudder. Gansey shook his head and tried again, but his voice still didn't quite make it to kingly Gansey like Ronan wanted it to. "He said he hadn't heard those words when he'd died. And I guess he hadn't. But — but — oh. Time is circular." Gansey buried his face in his hands, and it was the cave full of hornets, it was Glendower turned to dust, it was Gansey's hope brought to ruins. "That was Noah's voice. Why didn't I notice that it was Noah's voice? I've talked to him enough times. I've — I've — Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ."

Adam looked very dusty in the middle of the room, staring at them like he couldn't process what was happening. Blue looked like she wanted to comfort Gansey, but couldn't because she needed comfort too, and wouldn't have known how even if she'd had the strength. Ronan probably looked like he was shattered, only because everyone else was also so shattered that there was no point in hiding it. "That isn't all he said," Blue added, voice shaking. "He also said, 'Good-bye. Don't throw it away.' And then he was gone. Totally gone, instantly gone, like . . . like there was no energy left. They don't think he's coming back."

Gansey lifted his head out of his hands to look at Ronan, and Ronan was startled at the stark pain in his eyes. This was — this was — no. Gansey was alive. Things shouldn't feel like this.

"He said that to me once," Gansey said. "That time a wasp got in here, and I couldn't move to kill it. Remember?" How could I forget? But Gansey didn't wait for an answer. "'Don't throw it away.' He said that. And now he's . . ." Gansey trailed off as his eyes found the wristbands that Ronan was still pulling at furiously. "Wait. Wait. What is that black — is that — ?"

Ronan let go of the wristbands. "It's nothing."

Gansey fixed him with a steely glare, and kingly Gansey was back like he'd never left. "It's not nothing, Lynch. Where did that come from?"

"Where does any of my weird shit come from?" Ronan said. "My dreams, obviously."

Concern wiped away Gansey's anger in an instant, and Ronan hated it. "Ronan," he said slowly. "Are you okay?"

Ronan stood unsteadily, but he made up for it by crossing his arms and looking right into Gansey's eyes without flinching. He couldn't say it was okay — he couldn't lie again. But he could say, "It's fucking nothing, Gansey. It's fucking bullshit, just like this fucking bullshit that Noah's never coming back and my mom is dead and Cabeswater's gone and you almost were too. It's all fucking bullshit."

He stormed into the kitchen/bathroom/laundry with his tattoo pointed backwards at them like a warning. For an instant, he considered yanking beers from the fridge and downing them until he felt numb, but eventually he just pounded his fist into the wall and got into the shower.

By the time he finished scrubbing the black shit from his skin, someone had dumped a pile of clean clothes on the toilet seat and flung his leather jacket over the sink. Probably fucking Gansey again. Ronan took a deep breath, pulled on the clothes, and punched the wall again for good measure. Then he stepped back into the main room and leaned against the doorjamb, acting like he didn't know that they'd all probably heard him punch the wall and curse in the shower. Monmouth's walls weren't that thick.

"Look," he said. "It's all fucking bullshit. So let's get gelato for breakfast."

Gansey blinked. "Just like that?"

"Yeah." Ronan twisted his wristbands, wet from the shower, and felt Chainsaw land on his shoulder with a gentle kerah. He wondered, idly, if Adam had let her out. "Noah'd think it was hilarious."

Blue blinked at him too, and then she laughed, sharp and surprised, like she knew exactly what Ronan was doing but was willing to go along with it. "Well," she said, "it is kind of hilarious."

So they did.

Feel free to review if you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading!