04   there is no god here, girl

Mercy stands in front of the doors of St. Agnes, late and a devil hanging over her shoulder.

          "You're late," Illusion croons. "The man upstairs isn't going to like that."

They trail a finger across the white collar of her dress and down, pressing their nail into the black fabric stretched across her body.

          "Fuck off." Mercy flinches. Prying the hand from her shoulder, she steps towards the door. "You have no clout with Him either. He doesn't care about either of us."

Illusion's laugh is haunting. Mercy ignores them.

St Agnes is a crawling presence in her life. It's a reminder: of the broken, the lost and the confused. For some it's a sanctuary, for others a cage—a deadly trap where. There's nothing more constricting to Mercy than the stone walls and wooden pews, cold against her fingertips. It's like a noose around her neck. Mercy King has never believed in a God. That's not possible with the shadow of a devil hanging over your shoulder with every move you make. Spiteful and violently jagged, Mercy is wholly unhuman. The ghost of her potential; the ichor of Illusion's vines. She has no room for Gods. And yet every Sunday she walks through those doors. Her fingertips brush against the metal handle, and she pulls her sunglasses over her eyes. Mercy doesn't push the door open quietly, it's the collateral damage to her rampage—swinging against the metal hinges with a vengeance.

The Lynch brothers sit in the back pews, a space forward from the back row: Ronan's tattoo curled against the skin of his neck, flashing in the morning sunlight that pours from the stained windows. He doesn't look as Mercy's Doc Martens echo against the flooring, but she settles her sights on him immediately. With grace, she slides into the pew behind the brothers. Illusion falls into their place beside her, poking at the fabric of her tote bag. Noah flickers. It's the youngest Lynch that turns to look at her—a halo of blond curls and a golden grin teasing the bunching of his youthful cheeks and the caving of his dimples. Matthew Lynch has always been the best of their kind. The smile that flickers on Mercy's lips is soft. She slides her sunglasses from her nose and tunes into the muttering between Matthew's two brothers.

          "Sometimes, when I call you, I actually need you to pick up." Declan, the oldest, mutters into the air between him and Ronan.

          "Are we having a conversation?" Ronan asks. The severest of the brothers, his tone holds a bite, sharp like the lines of his tattoo. "Is that what's happening right now?"

Noah turns, an invisible force brushing against Matthew, his mouth curled into a smirk. Raising her brow, Mercy waggles her fingers, motioning for him to join her. He shakes his head, and she shrugs.

          "By the way, Joseph Kavinsky isn't someone I want you being around." Declan adds. Ronan makes a noise. "Don't snort. I'm serious."

A silence falls between the brothers, Ronan's look of contempt aimed at his older brother as a lady sweeps down the aisle. She stops for a moment, stepping through Illusion to carefully ruffle the straw-coloured hairs on Matthew's head. The teenager preens at the attention. It doesn't matter that he's fifteen years old—a growing boy leaning on the cusp of teenage angst. He's golden. Matthew Lynch is impossible not to love.

          "Like, actually dangerous." Declan utters.

For once, Mercy agrees with Declan Lynch, but she's unsure if it's for the same reasons. She doesn't hear what Noah whispers to Ronan, only sees him lean in and the sunlight spill through his white hair. He doesn't have a shadow, but the material of Ronan's clothes dip with his breath.

          "I know you think you're a punk," Declan says, "but you aren't nearly as badass as you think you are."

There's a moment where Mercy thinks that Declan has lit the match—Ronan's shoulders tense underneath the weight of his older brothers stare as his words sink in. He's a broken animal on guard: "Oh, go to hell" slipping from his lips like snapping teeth before he can break the cycle. But a magic plead from Matthew and both older Lynch brothers fall silent as the altar boys move through the threshold of the rear door. Mercy's expression tightens, and Illusion's finger moves through the air in time with the organ; a patronising force. There's vines that crawl up their legs as they move. With every new wave, the longer they grow. The plants spread to Mercy as the organ builds. They're tight, cutting into the skin of her leg and pressing rigidly against the leather of her boots. Resisting the urge to stomp on them, Mercy grasps one in her hand, snapping it and Illusion frowns. The vines disappear.

          "You're no fun." They hiss.

Noah flinches.

          "Watch the service." Mercy hisses back.

They fall silent. 

Mercy trails the Lynch brothers when they leave, lagging behind the crowd of seniors that had taken up a large section of the front few pews. It's fresh outside, a breeze tangling the red curls that frame her face. She pulls her sunglasses down, the nose pads pressing into her freckles and hikes her tote bag over her shoulder. It hangs light, except for the moving weight of a snow globe resting at it's bottom. There's a blonde waiting on the sidewalk, gold jewellery hanging from her ears and the brown roots of her dyed blonde hair beginning to peak through. It isn't kind how Mercy surveys her, emerald eyes narrowed and eyebrows slanted in judgement.

Ronan's smile is more of a snarl, etching vivid distaste into the root of his expression. "Afraid you'll catch fire if you come in?"

          "I refuse to participate in a ceremony that doesn't, like, allow equal spiritual privileges to women." The girl can't look Ronan in the eye as she answers.

Mercy snickers, and the blonde looks towards her. Mercy smiles. It's unsettling, jaggedly sharp enough to create a shiver down the girl's spine and the breeze picks up slightly. Illusion presses a thumb into the blonde's shoulder and she jumps. Mercy dips her head in a smirk.

Ronan looks between the blonde and Declan, ignoring Mercy on the steps. "Did you two buy your politics out of the same catalogue?"

          "Ronan— " Declan begins.

          "We have places to be, Lynch." Mercy cuts through, stepping down onto the sidewalk and curling a hand on Ronan's shoulder. Her voice is cold, hand warm against Ronan's shirt. "I'm stealing your brother for a little while. Hope you don't mind."

No surprise ripples through Ronan's tense expression, he knew this was coming. Ronan merely waves his keys, performing a surprisingly complicated handshake with Matthew before catching Declan's gaze through narrowed eyes. "Stay away from burglars."

Noah is already in the front passenger seat of Ronan's car when Mercy wrenches open the door. His hair sways with him, breeze filtering through the open window. She ignores him, falling into the seat without ceremony. He flashes out of existence as she slips in, only flashing back in when she's settled. He's in the backseat this time. Headphones around her neck, sweat trickles down the back of dress. It's hot within the space of the BMW, and Mercy doesn't have much care for it's interior as she dumps her bag at her feet. As a silent apology, Mercy slips the snow globe from tote bag and throws it in Noah's direction. She doesn't hear it hit the backseat, so Mercy assumes that he caught it.

Silver glints in the rear-view mirror. Turning in her seat, Mercy's nose furrows at Illusion's intrusion. They weren't in the church, so why are they here now? She huffs in contempt, and they waggle their fingers at her. If Noah can see his backseat companion, he shows no signs. His child-like focus is carefully trained on the dreamt up snow globe that Mercy tossed into his hands. The glass is compacted: rounded in a careful curve, but instead of Dollar City's sunshine beach and a palm tree, careful sprinkles of glitter catching the light, it's a scene of greenery. Trees stretch across the ground, tediously painted leaves dusting the dirt layer like the littering's in the forests surrounding Henrietta. Noah holds it to his face. There's a car in the middle of the clearing. He flinches, almost flickering out of existence again as Mercy studies him. She smiles, but her lip curls more like a snarl.

The BMW's engine roars to life as Ronan tears out of the parking lot, finally drawing Mercy's attention from the backseat. She lets the silence linger, Ronan's music spilling from the car's speakers like waves of destructive energy, battling against the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. Pressing one hand to her collarbone, feeling the ache without her locket, Mercy adjusts her sunglasses with the other.

          "What do you want, King?" Ronan finally breaks the silence.

It took him five minutes. Longer than she thought.

          "I want you to take me somewhere we can talk." Mercy replies.

She's being cryptic, and she knows it. The redhead pulls her headphones over her ears, and leaves Ronan to debate. This is a decision he has to make: whether he opens himself to her potential. Ronan's fingers tighten against the steering wheel. There's a lingering of spite that courses through his body. He means it when steers the car in the direction of Kavinsky's suburb, a subdivide of prosperous people and their fancy houses. A different type of rich to Gansey's factory and the Barns. A breeding ground for faux-rebels without a cause—careless decisions and a lack of consequences.

Mercy can't hear the shrill of cicadas or Kavinsky's engine as he approaches, rolling up beside the BMW at an intersection, but she notices. It's only when Kavinsky begins to talk that she pulls the headphones from her head and lets them fall around her neck. They're off in time to hear Ronan press his foot against the gas pedal, the engine roaring with new blood. She cranes her neck, leering at Kavinsky from underneath her sunglasses. Ronan pulls something from his centre console, tossing them at Kavinsky through their open windows. The glasses from her dream. Mercy bites her lip and presses two fingers to her empty sternum.

          "Well done, Lynch." Kavinsky's voice is grating against Mercy's nerves. "Where'd you find them?"

There's something veiled within Ronan's smile. He turns off the air-conditioning. Mercy slips her sunglasses from her face and hangs them from her shirt. There's something she's missing. A game she's not playing, but she wants in.

          "That's how it's gonna be?" Kavinsky asks. "Hard to get?"

The traffic light across from them turns yellow. The leather bracelet around Mercy's wrist, matching Ronan's own, itches. Kavinsky catches her eye, pressing two fingers to his chest with a sly grin. She shivers. 

          "Yes," Ronan says.

The light turns green and Ronan presses his foot against the pedal. Both cars tear from the intersection in an explosion, the smell of tire burning Mercy's nose through the open window. Kavinsky's Mitsubishi holds the lead for a few seconds, but where Kavinsky misses his shift from third to fourth, Ronan blows through. They lose sight of Kavinsky as Ronan turns a corner, powering towards Monmouth Manufacturing with a vengeance. Mercy doesn't ask any questions or see the quirk of Ronan's lips that create a semblance of a smile. She pulls her headphones back on and waits for the BMW to pull to a stop. 

Monmouth Manufacturing is exactly what Mercy King expects: a personification of Gansey's erratically fixated disposition—Glendower spread across the wooden floors like a rug. Books, scrolls, trinkets and even a model of Henrietta, precise and detailed. The exact, neat replica of the small town juxtaposes the littering of takeout boxes on the benches, at least a day old and encroaching on the kitchen's space, reminding Mercy that she has left her own dishes in the sink at home. The lighting is low, and Ronan Lynch is simmering within the warm heat of summer and his own diminishing patience. They both stand over the Henrietta replica. Mercy holds a glass of orange juice to her chest, pressing the cold and the condensation into the fabric of her dress to cool herself down. Ronan has nothing in his hands, arms crossed against his chest. They're silent. Ronan waits for her to move first in their metaphorical game of proverbial chess.

          "You got the tint wrong." Mercy takes a sip from her orange juice. "But it wasn't bad work."

          "The fuck are you talking about?" Ronan asks. He pushes himself off the kitchen counter, knocking a pair of chopsticks from a cardboard takeout container.

          "Why the glasses, of course. The one's you gave Kavinsky." Mercy places down her drink, cocking her head. There's something unnatural about her, the untethered nature of her smile. "They're good. You were close for someone who barely knows what they're doing."

          "What the fuck is wrong with you, King?" Ronan cracks. He's cold, arms holding tighter around his chest, the outline of his white knuckles stark against his black shirt.

Mercy picks at her nails. "Depends on what you're talking about." She waves her hand. "It's this or that. Me or them."

          "I don't want any of your bullshit." Ronan snaps.

          "You're not asking the right questions, Lynch." Mercy snaps hotly in return. His ignorance isn't her complication to take care of. Her only current issue is the Ley Line, and Kavinsky and Ronan Lynch seem to be an unfortunate set of numbers within that equation. "That's your problem, not my own. You're a smart boy. Even if that's hidden beneath quite a thick skull."

          "Now, now," Illusion croons. Mercy watches them with narrowed eyes, teeth bared. They step over Henrietta with ease, brushing against the roofs and chimneys of the houses. "Play nice, Miss King."

          "What the fuck are you looking at?" Ronan questions. The frustration oozes from him, his skin tight and aching on his body. "There's nothing there."

          "At least you're starting to get closer, but that's not one I'm going to answer now." Mercy huffs, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. She jerks her head at the leather bands Kavinsky had given him. "Ask, Ronan. Ask away."

He uncrosses his arms. "How do you know about the glasses?"

          "The same way I know about your little girl." Mercy explains simply, raising a brow. "She's cute, I like the hat you gave her. A wild one though. Oh so willing to leave the safety of the nest. Blondie asked me to take her with me when I woke up."

Ronan flinches. The slightest of movements. Mercy waves her hand.

           "You have nothing to worry about." She says. "I want nothing to do with your little dream things and everything to do with your tie to the forest..." The redhead pauses, eyes flicking to Gansey's maps and plethora of notebooks scrawled with one common theme. Mercy looks back to Ronan. "...And Glendower."