И они уснули. Они грезили и грезили, и звезды сделали круг над головой и пропали, а луна спряталась в деревьях, и солнце двигалось вокруг автомобиля. Машина заполнилась невозможными предметами и жалящими растениями, поющими камнями и кружевными бюстгальтерами. Когда сгустился полдень, они выбрались из машины, сняли потные рубашки и грезили на жаре. Предметы, слишком большие, чтобы поместиться в машине. Снова и снова Ронан проваливался в лес в своих потрепанных снах, пробирался между деревьями и что-нибудь крал. Он начал понимать, что имел в виду Кавински. Грезы были побочным продуктом всего, а сон был неважен. Деревья — лишь препятствие, своего рода сломанная охранная система. Как только это замкнулось в его мозгу, он смог забирать предметы из головы, не беспокоясь о том, что сам сон их повредит.

A grin cracked over his father’s face. He had the widest smile in the world, and he’d given it to his youngest son.
[...]
“Is that a lie?” Ronan asked.
Because Niall Lynch was the biggest liar of them all, and he’d stuffed all of that into his eldest son.
[...]
Ronan said, “I want to go back.”
“Then take it,” said his father. “You know how now.”
And Ronan did. Because Niall Lynch was a forest fire, a rising sea, a car crash, a closing curtain, a blistering symphony, a catalyst with planets inside him.
And he had given all of that to his middle son.

He rolled down the window. “I’m going.”
For a moment, Kavinsky’s face was perfectly blank, and then Kavinsky flickered back onto it. He said, “You’re shitting me.”
“I’ll send flowers.” Ronan revved the engine. Exhaust and dust swirled in a wild torment behind the Camaro. It coughed at twenty-eight-hundred rpm. Just like the Pig. Everything was back the way it was.
“Running back to your master?”
“This was fun,” Ronan said. “Time for big-boy games now, though.”
“You’re a player in his life, Lynch.”
The difference between us and Kavinsky, Gansey whispered in Ronan’s head, is we matter.
“You don’t fucking need him,” Kavinsky said.
Ronan released the parking brake.
Kavinsky threw up a hand like he was going to hit something, but there was nothing but air. “You are shitting me.”
“I never lie,” Ronan said. He frowned disbelievingly. This felt like a more bizarre scenario than anything that had happened to this point. “Wait. You thought — it was never gonna be you and me. Is that what you thought?”
Kavinsky’s expression was scorched. “There’s only with me or against me.”
Which was ludicrous. It had always been Ronan against Kavinsky. There was never any possibility of with. “It was never going to be you and me.”
“I will burn you down,” Kavinsky said.
Ronan’s smile was sharp as a knife. He had already been burned to nothing. “You wish.”

“What in the world is that noise?”
“Birds, Gansey, the king of birds.”
Gansey exchanged a look with Adam. “An eagle?”
“Don’t be blasphemous. Pigeons! It’s the regional today. I used to show them myself, you know. Don’t have the time these days, but I still love the look of a quality Voorburg Shield Cropper.”
Gansey said, “A pigeon show.”
“If you could see them, Gansey!” On his end of the line, a loudspeaker blared.
Adam’s mouth quirked. Gansey prompted, “The Voorburg Shield Croppers.”
“There is so much more on offer here,” Malory replied. “Much more than the Croppers.”
“Tell me what you are looking at right now.”
Malory smacked his lips — he was really the absolute worst human to speak to on the telephone — and considered. “I’m looking at, what does this seem to be? West of England Tumbler, I should think. Yes. Lovely example. You should see his muffs. Right next to him is a dreadful little Thuringen Field Pigeon. I’ve never had them but I’m quite certain they aren’t meant to have that hideous stallion neck. I have no idea what this one is. Let’s read the card. Anatolian Ringbeater. Of course. Oh, and here’s a German Beauty Homer.”
“Oh, those are my favorite,” Gansey said. “I am a fan of a good German Beauty Homer.”
“Gansey, don’t make light,” Malory said sternly. “Those things look like bloody puffins.”
Adam’s body shook in silent convulsions of laughter.
Gansey took a moment to catch his breath before asking, “And what’s that sound in the background?”
“Let me take a gander,” Malory replied. There was a crackling sound, and then his voice, rather louder than before, said, “They’re auctioning off some birds.”
“What sort? Please tell me German Beauty Homers.”
Adam, completely undone, bit his hand. Small gasps still managed to escape.
“Pigmy Pouters,” Malory replied. “Feisty ones!”
Gansey mouthed Blue at Adam. Adam let out a little wail of helpless laughter.
“You never took me to any pigeon shows while I was there,” Gansey said reproachfully.

A secret is a strange thing.

There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid.

And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it.

Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.

All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches — that’s what will be left at the end of it all.