“If I did get in,” Blue said, “could I get loans and aid to cover it all?”
“Let me get you some paperwork,” Ms. Shiftlet said. “FAFSA will pay for a percentage depending on your need. The amount varies.”
Blue couldn’t expect any help from the lean budget at 300 Fox Way. She thought about the bank account she’d slowly been filling. “How much will be left over? Could you guess?”
Ms. Shiftlet sighed. Guessing clearly fell outside her realm of interests. She flipped the monitor around again to reveal the school’s tuition rate. “If you were staying in the dorm, you’d probably be obligated for ten thousand dollars a year. Your parents could take out a loan, of course. I have paperwork for that, too, if you would like it.”
Blue leaned back as her heart vacated her chest cavity. Of course it was impossible. It had been impossible before she arrived and would continue being impossible forever. It was just that spending time with Gansey and the others had made her think that the impossible might be more possible than she’d thought before.
Maura was always telling her, Look at all the potential you hold inside yourself!
Potential for other people, though. Not for Blue.
It wasn’t worth shedding tears over something she had known for so long. It was just that this, on top of everything else —
She swallowed. I will not cry in front of this woman.
Suddenly, Noah scrambled out from under the desk. He leapt to his feet. There was something wrong about the action, something about it that meant it was too fast or too vertical or too violent for a living boy to perform. And he kept going up, even after he’d already stood. As he stretched to the ceiling, the card that said reach, match, and safety hurtled into the air.
“Oh?” said Ms. Shiftlet. Her voice wasn’t even surprised, yet.
The warmth sucked from Blue’s skin. The water in Ms. Shiftlet’s glass creaked.
The business card holder upended. Cards splayed across the desk. A computer speaker fell onto its face. An array of paper swirled up. Someone’s family photo shot upward.
Blue jumped up. She didn’t have any immediate plan but to stop Noah, but as she flung her hands out, she realized that Noah wasn’t there.
There was just a tossed explosion of tissues and business envelopes and business cards, a frenetic tornado losing propulsion.
The material collapsed back to the desk.
Blue and Ms. Shiftlet stared at each other. The paper rustled as it settled completely. The knocked-over computer speaker buzzed; one of its cables had been knocked ajar.
The temperature was slowly rising in the room again.
“What just happened?” Ms. Shiftlet asked.
Blue’s pulse galloped.
Truthfully, she replied, “I have no idea.”
Blue arrived at Monmouth Manufacturing before anyone else. She knocked to be sure, and then let herself in. Immediately, she was enveloped with the comfortable scent of the room: the faded library-smell of old books, the cool odor of mint, the must-and-rust scent of century-old brick and ancient pipes, the note of funk from the heap of dirty laundry against the wall.
“Noah?” Her voice was small in the huge expanse. She dropped her backpack on the desk chair. “Are you here? It’s okay, I’m not upset. You can use my energy if you need.”
There was no answer. The space was turning gray and blue as one of the strange flash thunderstorms roiled over the mountains, filling the floor-to-ceiling windows of the warehouse with clouds. The sharp afternoon shadows behind the stacks of books mutated and diffused. The room felt heavy, sleepy.
Blue peered into the dark gathering at the far-above peak of the roof. “Noah? I just want to talk about what happened.”
She put her head in the door of Noah’s room. Malory’s things occupied it currently, and it smelled mannish and evergreen. One of his bags was open and Blue could see that it was entirely filled with books. This struck her as impractical and Gansey-like and made her feel a bit more benevolent toward the professor.
Noah was not there.
She checked the bathroom, which was also sort of the laundry room and kitchen. The doors hung open on a small stacked washer-dryer unit; socks draped over the sink’s edge, either drying or flung. A small fridge lurked dangerously close to the toilet. A length of rubber tubing strangled a showerhead above a grimy drain; the shower curtain was strung from the ceiling with fishing line. Blue was disturbed by the number of chip bags that were reachable from the toilet. A dark red tie on the floor pointed a jagged line toward the exit.
Some foreign impulse urged Blue to pick up any of the mess, any single component, to improve upon the disaster.
She did not.
She backed out.
Ronan’s room was forbidden, but she looked inside anyway. His raven’s cage sat with its door ajar, impeccably and incongruously clean. His room was filled not so much with filth, but clutter: shovels and swords leaned in the corners, speakers and printers piled by the wall. And bizarre objects in between: an old suitcase with vines trailing out of it, a potted tree that seemed to be humming to itself, a single cowboy boot in the middle of the floor. A mask hung high on the wall, eyes wide, mouth gaping. It was blackened, as if by fire, and the edges were badly bitten, as if by a saw. Something that looked suspiciously like a tire track ran over one of its eyes. The mask made Blue think of words like survivor and destroyer.
She didn’t like it.
A crash behind Blue made her leap — but it was only the apartment door opening. Guilt had amplified the sound.
Blue darted out of Ronan’s room. Gansey and Malory trailed in slowly, deep in conversation. The Dog sulked behind them, excluded by virtue of not speaking English.
“Of course Iolo Goch would make sense as a companion,” Gansey was saying, sloughing off his jacket. “Him or Gruffudd Llwyd, I suppose. But — no, it’s impossible. He died in Wales.”
“But are we sure?” Malory asked. “Do we know where he was buried? That he was buried?”
“Or if he was just made into nightgowns, you mean?” Gansey caught sight of Blue then, and he rewarded her with his best smile — not his polished one, but the more foolish number that meant he was excited. “Hallo, Jane. Tell me what Iolo Goch means to you.”
Blue pulled her thoughts from Ronan’s mask and Noah and school. “A chest cold?”
“Glendower’s closest poet,” Gansey corrected. “Also, very funny.”
“Did you find anything?” she asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” he replied, but he sounded cheerful about it.
Malory lowered his mass onto the leather couch. The Dog lay on top of him. It didn’t seem as if it would be very comfortable; the Dog draped over the professor like a slip cloth over a chair. But Malory merely closed his eyes and stroked him in an uncharacteristic show of affection. “Gansey, I perish for a cup of tea. Can such a thing be had in this place? I cannot possibly hope to survive this jet lag without a cup of tea.”
“I got tea just for you,” Gansey said. “I’ll make some.”
“Please not with loo water,” Malory called after him, not opening his eyes. The Dog kept lying on him.
For an overwhelming moment, Blue was afraid she was going to be unable to prevent herself from asking what the Dog was for. Instead, she followed Gansey back to the kitchen-bathroom-laundry.