Mister Impossible - Maggie Stiefvater (ereader manga TXT) 📗

knew Declan was withholding information. Adam, as a secretive creature, understood secrets. But Adam just asked, “How much do you know about what Ronan’s been doing?”

Declan shook his head. He knew only that Ronan, Hennessy, and Bryde were interfering with the Moderators’ attempt to kill other dreamers. That had seemed noble. Useful. An acceptable outlet for Ronan’s abilities and rebelliousness. Perhaps he had just wanted it to be. He’d wanted fewer ducklings for once.

Adam said, “There’s no concrete evidence, but Ronan and the others have been implicated in over twenty incidents of industrial espionage.”

Surprise was not the emotion Declan was feeling, so some part of him must have known. Suspected, anyway. This was the other shoe dropping.

“What kind of industrial espionage?”

“I got access to some of the agencies’ documents,” Adam said casually. This, Declan thought, was why those kids in the waffle line couldn’t truly be Adam’s bosom friends. Adam was reading intelligence documents about his boyfriend and they were googling celebrity chefs. “They’ve been taking down power grids. Server farms. Corporate waste sites. That power outage a few weeks ago, the one that affected those tens of thousands in Delmarva? That was them. Transmission line. The price tag is in the billions.”

“Billions,” echoed Declan. It was a lot to take in. “What’s the goal?”

“The Moderators don’t know, or at least they haven’t put it in writing. I think I can guess, though. Overnight, I compared the dates and times of the espionage with the surges, and they match up. They match up exactly. I think Ronan and the others have been working to clear obstacles from the ley lines to make them stronger. Every time they do, that creates a chain reaction that means this line under Boston and Cambridge, this line that was dormant—it surges, too. Has Matthew been having fewer of those strange episodes lately?”

Declan didn’t know. He hadn’t asked. Matthew hadn’t said. Theoretically Declan had been thinking nonstop about a sweetmetal to secure his future, but actually, this was what Declan had been thinking nonstop about: Jordan Hennessy.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Adam said. “He should be feeling great every time one of these surges happen.”

Declan didn’t see the problem with that, and he said so.

Adam pointed to the beetles. “You don’t see a problem with that?”

“I see something that means eventually Matthew could stay awake on his own, am I right?”

Adam’s voice was patient, as if Declan were a child. “Multiply that times thousands. Imagine a world where all the things the Ronan Lynches of the planet have dreamt over the years begin to wake up. Over the decades. Centuries. Think about legends that could be talking about dreams. Think about all the monsters. Dragons. Minotaurs. How many of those things are just stories and how many of those things were dreams that are sleeping now because the dreamers died long ago? Right now, Ronan’s limited by how strong the ley line is. How many Ronans are there? What would they do without any limits? Stop thinking about Matthew for a second and think.”

And now it began to spool out in Declan’s mind, a future where dreamers with ambition broke the economy, changed the art world, dreamt escalating weapons. Niall and Ronan’s skill hadn’t been threatening because it had been limited both by ability and by scope—they wanted to live in the world as it was. But someone with absolute power and no checks or balances, Declan thought, someone with ambition …

“This isn’t about just keeping Matthew awake,” Adam said. “This is a bigger plan. This is a strategy.”

“That doesn’t sound like Ronan.”

“Why do you think I said we needed to talk about Bryde?”

Bryde.

“Declan,” Adam said, “the Moderators have special psychics. Visionaries, they call them. They’ve seen the future, and they think Ronan and the others are going to dream the apocalypse. That’s why they’re trying to kill him and Hennessy and Bryde. They think they’re going to end the world.”

Adam went on, his voice low. “There’s something out there. A thing that would end the world if it could, a kind of collective nightmare. I saw it the last time I scryed. A dreamer could bring it back. They wouldn’t even have to be trying to do it on purpose. You’ve seen what Ronan can do. Just one bad dream with enough ley energy to make it real, and then it’s game over. The Moderators have a point, is what I’m trying to say. Think about it. They have a point. And that’s even if there’s no bigger plan than just making the ley lines powerful again.”

For a moment they were quiet. Declan sat on the concrete bench and looked back down the street at Harvard. He thought about how, at the beginning of the semester, Ronan had come here to look for apartments, and Declan had really believed that his loud brother might possibly live a quiet life like that, for Adam’s sake.

“Has he called you?” Declan asked, knowing the answer already, not because of anything Adam had said, but because of all the things he hadn’t.

Adam just looked at him.

“Do you trust Ronan?” Declan asked. His brother was many things, he thought, but murderer he was not. Even at his worst, it was only himself he’d wanted to destroy, and that hadn’t seemed to be the Ronan he heard on the phone. Ronan’s sin was immediacy, not villainy.

Adam looked pensive. “I don’t trust Bryde.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

But Adam just flicked a remaining beetle back under the bench and turned his face into the coming sunset.

Declan understood then that Adam Parrish was allowing him not much closer than he’d let those friends in the waffle truck line. This was still just a corner of the situation. A very different corner than he would share with his Harvard buddies, but still. Need-to-know basis. No more. Actual closeness and truth had been reserved for only one person, and Declan’s relationship to that person was the only reason he was being given even this much of