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.
He could not remember the last time he had cried.
It was not just Glendower he was mourning. It was all the versions of Gansey he had been in the last seven years. It was the Gansey who had pursued him with youthful optimism and purpose. And it was the Gansey who had pursued him with increasing worry. And it was this Gansey, who was going to have to die. Because it made a fatal sort of sense. They required a death to save Ronan and Adam. Blue’s kiss was supposed to be deadly to her true love. Gansey’s death had been foretold for this year. It was him. It was always going to be him.
Glendower was dead. He’d always been dead.
And Gansey kind of wanted to live.
Eventually, Gansey heard footsteps approaching in the leaves. This was terrible, too. He did not want to stand and show them his teary face and receive their pity; the idea of this well-meaning kindness was nearly as unbearable a thought as his approaching death. For the very first time, Gansey understood Adam Parrish perfectly.
He unfolded himself and stood with as much dignity as he could muster. But it was just Blue, and somehow there was no humiliation to her seeing that he’d been levelled. She just looked at him while he brushed the pine needles off his trousers, and then, after he had sat on the top of the picnic table, she sat beside him until the others left the cars to see what they were doing.
They stood in a half circle around his picnic table throne.
“About the sacrifice,” Gansey said.
No one said anything. He couldn’t even tell if he had said it out loud.
“Did I say anything?” Gansey asked.
“Yeah,” Blue replied. “But we didn’t want to talk about it.”
“I apologize if this is a rudimentary question,” Henry interjected, “as I arrived to class late. But I don’t suppose your treefather gave you any other demon-killing advice?”
“No, just the sacrifice,” Blue said. Gingerly, she added, “I think … he might have known about Glendower. Not all along, maybe. He might have figured it out while he was wandering around down there after getting with my mom, or maybe from the beginning. But I think he was one of Glendower’s magicians. Maybe also that … other guy.”
She meant the other body in the tomb. It wasn’t difficult to follow the story she imagined, of Artemus trying to put Glendower to sleep and doing something wrong.
“So we’re left with the sacrifice,” Gansey pressed. “Unless you have any better ideas, Adam?”
Adam had been frowning off into the sparse pine trees that bordered the picnic area. He said, “I am trying to think of what else would satisfy the ley line magic, but willing life for unwilling life doesn’t suggest substitutions.”
Gansey felt a prickle of dread in his stomach. “Well then.”
“No,” said Ronan. He didn’t say it in a protesting way, or an angry way, or an upset way. He simply said no. Factual.
“Ronan—”
“No.” Factual. “I didn’t just come get you out of this hole for you to die on purpose.”
Gansey matched his tone. “Blue saw my spirit on the ley line, so I already know that I die this year. Occam’s razor suggests the simplest explanation is the right one: We decide that it is me.”
“Blue did what?” Ronan demanded. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Never,” Blue said. She didn’t say it in a protesting way, or an angry way, or an upset way. Just never. Factual.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Gansey said. “I don’t want to die. I’m terrified, actually. But I don’t see any other option. And the fact is that I want to make something of myself before I die, and I thought it was going to be something about Glendower. It’s obviously not. So I might as well do something meaningful. And – kingly.” The last bit was a little melodramatic, but it was a melodramatic situation.
“I think you’re getting king confused with martyr,” Henry said.
“I’m open to other options,” Gansey said. “In fact, I’d prefer them.”
Blue said abruptly, “We’re your magicians, right?”
Yes, his magicians, his court, him their pointless king, nothing to offer but his pulse. How right it had felt at each moment that he met them all. How certain that they plunged towards something bigger than even this moment.