Ronan wasn’t sure how he knew exactly what he’d been thinking, but he wasn’t wrong. He rubbed his finger on his ear by the phone, thinking, deciding, and then he told the dreamt phone to dial another number.

It was time.

“Ronan?” Adam asked, surprised. He had picked up immediately, even though the display name would have just looked like nonsense.

“Why didn’t you text back?”

“Text … back? You didn’t call. It’s been weeks.”

“But why didn’t you text back?”

There was quiet. Almost quiet. Wherever he was, Adam was moving locations; there was the sound of a door closing. “I was on a motorcycle. Then I was taking an exam. Then I was probably, I don’t know, sleeping. I don’t remember. I came to see you, I was making time best I could. It wasn’t that long. I did text back. How could I know that you were going to ditch your phone? Ronan, you didn’t call.”

His accent was gone. It was like talking to a stranger. Ronan had thought this would feel different. Or maybe he didn’t. He didn’t know. His chest was still burning. Fire roared through him, right to the ends of his hands and toes. “I’m calling now.”

“I didn’t know what was happening,” Adam said. “I didn’t know what you were doing, if you were even alive. I didn’t know if we were … if it … what …”

Ronan repeated, “I’m calling now. I need to see you.”

“You’re here?” Adam said, even more surprised than he had been when he first picked up. “Oh.”

There was something about that Oh that Ronan didn’t like the shape of. It seemed sad. Not as if Adam was sad when he said it. But more like something about that Oh was going to make Ronan sad. But he plunged ahead anyway. “Can you let us lie low for a few hours while we figure out what’s going on with Hennessy?”

Adam didn’t reply right away. Then he said, “Who’s ‘us’?”

“Me and Bryde. They have—they have Hennessy, I think.” Ronan knew this was a lie. Or at least a partial truth. Bryde hadn’t seen it, but Ronan had. He’d seen Hennessy turn around. He’d let her. God, everything was going to shit.

Adam said, very precisely, “You can come lie low.” Then, in case Ronan hadn’t understood him, he repeated, “You.”

“How big of a douche do you think I am?”

“The Lace is afraid of him, Ronan. I am, too. Let him take this heat.”

And then Ronan understood why the Oh had made him so sad. He’d known it subconsciously before, but now he knew it clearly: Adam had known Declan was betraying the dreamers. He had known the Moderators would be waiting in the rose garden.

They’d all been in on it.