15   with a heavy heart i'll guide this dagger

Mercy King feels the pill dissolve the moment it hits her tongue and leans into the familiar feeling. It's a pull, bones again melting into the suit of her skin. She lets herself fall, plummeting down the rabbit hole as the forest forms around her. It looms—tall and menacing either side of her. Mercy lands on her hands and knees, scraping her already scarred knees and bleeding black. Red-hair tickling the forest floor, she claws herself together. Her lungs heave, gasping and aching for breath as she pulls herself together. Mercy isn't used to the side effects anymore: the sickness in her stomach, her bones cracking as they pull her up and the oozing of black ichor from her ears and nose. Branches clawing at her and Ronan, she realises that their own forest is fighting against them. The thorns scratch her arms, bleeding them red raw and peeling away at her skin. She seethes, teeth grinding against each other.

It takes every piece of her energy to stand tall, to face Kavinsky's sunken face in the green briars. He looks wrong, undersaturated and an imposter in his own skin. The forest fights against him. Kavinsky's shoulders sag, face saturated in his own blood that seeps from cuts across his grinning face. Thunder rumbles, the branches moving with minds of their own as vines grow on the outskirts of the clearing. Illusion, a crisp and clear image, rests on their rock with a waving hand and a handkerchief. This is what they wanted. Mercy squeezes her fist, ironing out her self-control. The world isn't quiet tonight—roaring in her ears, straining against the confines of their combined dreams. Almost like it's too much for Cabeswater to handle. Gritting her teeth, she pulls Ronan up beside her. This is their convergence point; this is their reckoning, and they have to stand tall. They have to face it with chins held high.

          "Guess our secret place is the same," Kavinsky says. He grins, blood oozing from the cuts and scratches.

Ronan pulls away from Mercy. "Not such a thief tonight."

          "Some nights," Kavinsky is all snapping teeth and hedonistic eyes, "you just take it. Consent is overrated."

          "You're a monster," Mercy says. She spits at Kavinsky's feet

          "All the best people are," Kavinsky replies.

          "You don't have to do this,' Ronan tries.

Kavinsky stretches out his hands, spinning the same way that Mercy did before. An echo of each other. "There isn't anything else, man."

          "There's reality."

Kavinsky laughs. "Reality! Reality's what other people dream for you."

          "Reality's where other people are," Ronan replies. He stretches out his own arms. "What's here, K? Nothing! No one!"

Mercy looks at Illusion beneath hooded eyes, biting her lip. There's something, and it's all consuming.

          "Just us," Kavinsky says. "Just us and the world." He looks at Mercy. "Like it always used to be."

Mercy sneers. "It was never us, Kavinsky. I played with you for the summer and you did nothing but kill the only person I had."

          "That's not enough." Ronan cuts in. "Us isn't enough."

          "Don't say Dick Gansey, man. Do not say it. He is never going to be with you. And don't tell me you don't swing that way, man. I'm in your head."

Mercy's skin crawls, Kavinsky's obsession with Ronan has never been so spelt out, so blatantly admitted. She crowds next to Ronan, vines twining up her fingers as she lets them open to the ground. Kavinsky's jealousy is a fickle thing—all consuming and visceral. It has leaked into every part of his body like black ichor. There is no killing it, only him.

          "That's not what Gansey is to me," Ronan says.

          "You didn't say you don't swing that way."

Thunder rumbles overhead. Ronan is silent, looking at Kavinsky with narrowed eyes. "No, I didn't."

          "That makes it worse, man. You really are just his lapdog."

          "You, of all people, have no right to judge other people's friendships." Mercy snaps. She steps forward, leaning down Kavinsky's nose an inch away from her own. With every word, she prods his chest, causing him to stumble backwards on his feet. "You destroy your own, wonder why you're alone and then create your own people to be friends with you because you've managed to drive everybody real away." She laughs. "No wonder reality isn't for you, it fucking hates you. Face it, Kavinsky: life isn't just sex and drugs and cars."

Kavinsky catches himself, regaining balance. He sneers, thorns sinking through the fabric of his cargo pants and into his skin. His eyes hold Mercy's, mouth widening into a grin made of sharpness and bone. It's terrifying and exhilarating all at once—the very thing that made her fall into his Mitsubishi last summer. Kavinsky's face is void of everything but cruelty and danger.

The smile quirks. "Mine is."

Reaching out a hand, Kavinsky snaps his fingers, and the forest screams. Like a bullet, it rips through Mercy, dropping her to her knees at Kavinsky's feet. It holds her at gunpoint: the sound that rips from her throat, tearing at her oesophagus and the soft tissues, is more guttural than the night Mallory died. She folds in on herself, nails sinking into her arms. Tywyll is heavy against her skin, dripping from her ears and nose, sliding down her cheeks and chin like a black river. It hurts too much to wipe away. Mercy's torso is a battleground, stomach folding in on itself and her chest aching like a dying heartbeat. It is everything and nothing at once, a familiar concoction of ills and agony.

The forest is lit around them, weeping in tandem with Mercy. It opens like Pandora's Jar, a ball of fire plummets from the thick of it, a living wildfire contorted into the loose shape of a dragon. As it descends on the fragile earth below it, Mercy and Ronan can see that it's fire inside and out. It is destruction and wrath in a physical form.

          "You don't have to do this." She croaks out.

Kavinsky grasps her hair in his fist, yanking her head up with a cruel smile. "No, but I want to."

He lets go, and by the time Mercy looks up, Kavinsky is gone. The ley line dies with his disappearing shadow.

Ronan is helping Mercy to her feet as the landscape changes beneath their feet, un-forming and forming into a familiar man-made lake. The dirt-caked water and splash of stones against the landscape are achingly familiar. Mercy's screams have died in her tiring throat, Ronan holding onto her shoulders to keep her from slipping into the shadows. As her eyes open, Adam and Persephone shimmer against the horizon. Leaning against Ronan, she looks up to him.

          "You can see them too, right?"

Something in Ronan's eyes flickers. "Adam? Is that really you?"

Adam looks up sharply. "Lynch. What did Kavinsky just dream?"

          "A fire fucker." Ronan says. He catches Mercy as she begins to slip. "Come on, King, pull yourself together."

Mercy sucks in a breath, gripping Ronan's arms and holding herself up. She pushes on wobbly arms and stands on wobbly legs, smearing black ichor across her face as she tries to blot it away. Mercy looks crazed—the wild and feral thing that she is with black-stained teeth grinning through grey and orange freckles. Her green eyes flash at Adam in the dying light.

           "I see you're finally keeping up," Mercy comments. Her voice is crackling, on its way to death's door.

Adam makes a face. He turns to Ronan. "What are you dreaming to take it down?"

          "Nothing." Ronan says. "There's nothing here."

          "We're all out of juice, kid." Mercy says, gesturing to the forest flickering in and out of existence.

Persephone runs up to Adam, heaving a flat stone into his arms.

          "What are you doing?" Ronan demands.

          "Fixing it," Adam says. "Start making something. I'll try to have it up by the time you're done."

There's a scream in the distance, sinking through the barrier between their dream and reality.

            "Hurry," Persephone advises, blonde hair stark in the darkness.

Adam looks at Ronan. "I know it was you. I figured it out. The rent."

He holds Ronan's gaze for a moment longer than necessary before leaping up, taking the stone from Persephone's hands and sprinting towards the opposite shore.

          "Now." Persephone says.

Mercy holds out a hand to Ronan. "Together."

Ronan's expression is solemn as he gingerly takes Mercy's grey-stained hands in his own. They look out to the forest—twin souls aching, joining together as one.

           "Cabeswater, we need your help." He says.

            "You need our help." Mercy adds.

The trees hiss:

Raptor.

Plunderers.

           "We're not here to steal!" Ronan shouts into the trees. "Do you want to save yourself?"

It's silent. The shadows grow, a phantom laughter echoing. Mercy's head snaps to the rock behind them, finding it empty. Ronan looks into the darkness, and she cringes.

           "We're not him!" Mercy shouts, pleadingly raw. "Please, we aren't here to steal!"

          "Damn it," Ronan curses, "you know me. Haven't you always? Didn't you know my father? We're both Greywarens."

The dream is dying, collapsing around them on its last legs. Behind the trunk of an old tree, a blonde head and dirt-stricken skullcap flashes. The girl. Mercy's voice is broken, without sound and bleeding raw. Silently, she reaches out a hand, eyes bright in the darkness. Please, they plead, help us. Ronan looks between the girl and Mercy, reaching out his own hand. She mutters something that Mercy doesn't register.

          "Many thieves." The girl adds. "One Greywaren. One Spider."

          "Look, I'm sorry." Ronan says. "I didn't know. I didn't know anything. I had to figure everything out myself, and it took a fucking long time, okay? Please. I can't do it without you."

Mercy holds her tightly, pressing her freckled nose to the girl's skullcap, praying she can feel the apology in her broken touch. Hope floods through her veins like a drug, pulling her together and the blackness slowly begins to turn into mere drops in the earth. It clears, grey wiping from her teeth and fixing the clumping of  her mangled curls. In Ronan's hand the puzzle box appears. Languages are etched into the sides, please facing Mercy like a glaring light. Ronan studies it.

          "T'implora?"

The feeling is infinite. It's a goldrush, a fire lit within her bloodstream and soaring past every vessel, settling into the tiny crevices of her being. It's everything and more. The forest heaves, breathing a sigh of relief in tandem with Mercy. Together as one, the breeze picks up and Mercy's curls bounce, alive and untangled. She feels like a kid again, limitless with potential and knowing no bounds. It's freeing. The trees are speaking and Mercy can understand them clearly. They hum, singing a soft tune that curls around her ears and cups her jaw in a warm palm.

          "Is this how it feels?" She asks, looking at Ronan with wide child-like eyes. "To be a dreamer?"

Ronan nods, chin tipped to the sky and eyes pressed closed. Mercy erupts, laughing as the forest returns their calls, but her joy is broken by slow ticks. Shadows growing, Illusion stands at the divide between darkness and the clearing. They smile, sickly sweet and sinful as they wave to Mercy. She stops, catching herself before losing her balance. Ronan's eyes snap open. Claws rattle, tapping against upturned stones and beaks snapping, representing the shift of dream to nightmare.

Illusion's arms stretch wide and far, announcing themself and their creatures to the clearing and the trees. "I bring the cavalry."

          "Ronan," Mercy eyes them warily. "What's wrong?"

Ronan doesn't move. "Night horrors."

Curses slip past Mercy's lips, and she bites into the flesh of her bottom lip. "Maybe they can help?"

Ronan's expression is grim. He kneels down, pressing his fingers into the soft soil. "This won't help. This won't save anyone."

The trees whisper, graceful and ancient: Quedadmodum gladius neminem occidit; occidentis telum est.

           "A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hand." Mercy whispers to herself. Eyebrows pinched, she thinks. This isn't Circe King, cursed to never gain control. This is Ronan Lynch and they live within his domain. He has nothing to fear. "Lynch, I think you have to embrace them. Let them be a part of you, Ronan, they always have been."

Ronan shakes his head. "I can't control them. They only want to hurt me."

          "They don't want to hurt you," Mercy says calmly. "They are you."

A night horror breaks away from Illusion, picking it's way over the trees and blocking out the sky. Bigger than the others, it's a beautiful monster. It's claws hook into the ground, red tips mellowing to a translucent yellow and into glacier white flesh. Beady eyes watch Ronan and Mercy carefully, snapping its beak. Adam, a stronger version than Mercy has ever seen, stands before them, lightning striking the stone beside him. She gasps, the ley line spasming to life inside her and the ground.

          "Now!" Adam shouts, the sound ripping from his dream-throat. "Ronan, now!"

The night horror hisses above them.

          "It's only you," Mercy whispers. She presses her hands onto Ronan's shoulders, laying her head atop his.

The girl tucks herself into Ronan, taking his hand and crouching beside him. "Why do you hate you?"

Ronan pauses. He stands up, the girl stepping away, and holds out his arm like he would to Chainsaw. The albino night horror sweeps in, talons opening. He pulls Mercy as she wipes the last of the ichor from her nose, stumbling and holding herself up on Ronan's shoulder. Together they stretch out their arms like they would for Chainsaw.

           "I don't," he says.

And they wake up. 

The drag strip vibrates, booming with power and might. Mercy doesn't necessarily wake up. Instead, she finds herself being pulled into a standing position by Ronan as his night horror and Kavinsky's dragon battle overheard. The creatures climb, wrestling each other in the inky shadows as fireworks burst past through and into them. The fireworks fizzle out in the night horror's thick hide and are swallowed by the dragon's flaming heart. Ronan, Mercy and Kavinsky can't help but stop, leaning their heads in together to witness what the infinite power of dreams has created. The monsters are horrid but beautiful things, evil and ill intent leaking into the earth's surface with every swipe of black ichor and burning ash. Mercy pulls away from Ronan, bringing him with her as she spies for Blue and Gansey. The two have split up, ripping at every door and trunk to the countless identical Mitsubishi. Mallory, smirking and covered in ash, leans against hers. She winks. Mercy flinches.

The crowd still sings around them—oblivious to the eruption of destruction above their own heads. Music continues to blast through faraway speakers, cars spitting dust into people's faces and solo cups are crushed underneath sneaker-covered feet. It's just another party. Mercy turns to the dragon on a direct line towards her, Ronan and Kavinsky. It tears along the drag stripe, springing from the roofs of different Mitsubishi. Mallory doesn't even flinch as it's great wings arch over her head, sucking on a cherry sucker with a grin.

          "Mallory!" Mercy screams wildly. She begins to move but the dragon roars and the ground shakes beneath her feet. Mercy holds herself against the car door on weak knees.

          "Stop it," Ronan says to Kavinsky.

The dragon begins to target cars, flipping them on their heads with a vengeance. Ronan straightens. His panic dissolves as Gansey waves wildly from the other side of the strip, shaking his head.

          "Tell me which car my brother's in." Ronan demands.

          "A white one."

Mercy aches to punch Kavinsky's cocky smile off his snide face, but the dragon gathers itself up and plummets to the ground once more. The crowd falls silent, Kavinsky's laughter echoing through the empty caverns. The night horror slams into the dragon without remorse, an explosion of ash and black ichor spraying across the strip. Beginning to scream, partygoers leap out the way of the two monsters and their battle. Another Mitsubishi is lost to the bloodshed.

          "Kavinsky," Mercy pleads, "come on this isn't a game. Do you really want to kill someone else? Was Mallory not enough for you?"

Kavinsky laughs. "Mallory's just fine." He gestures. "Look at her."

Mercy squeezes her eyes closed before opening them again. "You killed her, J. That isn't Mallory, that's not fucking real. You still have a chance to save Matthew."

          "And what if I don't?" His smile only grows.

Levelling Kavinsky with a deadly stare, Mercy squeezes her fists. She says nothing.

          "Ronan!" Blue's voice carries across the dust. She looks in another Mitsubishi to no avail.

The lightbulbs of the last living floodlight bursts, the drag strip only illuminated by the dragon's flaming hide. It's remoulding the shadows, an overarching image of wide wings and endless eyes. Wings expanding, it dives towards Gansey and Blue. Mercy's scream is shrill, and Ronan's night horror launches itself at the dragon, barely missing Blue and Gansey.

Gansey shouts hoarsely, "Do something!"

Hair whipping against her face, Mercy snaps to look at Kavinsky. She bares her teeth, pushing forward and wrapping her hands around his throat.

          "We're done." She says, squeezing.

          "Where's my brother? No more." Ronan spits out. "Where is he?"

Kavinsky throws out a hand to the Mitsubishi beside them, croaking out, "He's all yours! You missed my point, man. All I wanted was this—"

He gestures to the battle. Ronan ignores him, stumbling towards the car and wrenching open the back door to reveal it's empty. Mercy squeezes tighter, sneering. Another car goes up behind them, glorious and explosive, the sound rumbling like thunder. A hand grips Mercy's arm, familiar and calloused. She lets herself be pulled backwards, blonde hair soft and spilling over her skin.

           "Let him go, King." Mallory says through her sucker. "This isn't going to solve anything."

          "Mal," Mercy growls, "let me go."

Mallory leans close. "But you always liked it when I held you tight."

          "Mallory." Mercy says darkly. There's another scream, the dragon plunging towards them. She barely registers Matthew kicking himself free from the trunk of the Mitsubishi with Ronan's help and clinging onto the white car for support. Only in the corner of her eye does Mercy see how he dives for his little brother, wrapping him in his arms, dragging him away, but he isn't fast enough. "We have to help them."

           "Let them go," Mallory says softly into her ear. "They don't mean anything to you. Not like we did. Come on, King, think about it. If you choose them over Kavinsky, you're letting me die again."

Mercy's head snaps to Kavinsky standing by his Mitsubishi, arms wide and welcoming. She shakes her head wildly. "No, no, no. He killed you. He challenged you."

          "But you held the flag."

Tears spill in streaks down Mercy's face, still shaking her head. "No. He challenged you.He made the drugs for us. It was him."

          "Just fucking let them go, Mercy!" Mallory screams.

This isn't who Mercy remembers. She pushes herself into Mallory, wrapping her arms around the girl and pinning her to her chest. Together, they sink to the ground, two bodies melding into one as Mercy pulls together every single piece of energy she can. Vines lurch from the ground like snakes and sniping whenever they can. They grasp at the legs of Kavinsky's dragon, Ronan's night horror climbing on their limbs for better leverage. Mallory wriggles in her grip. Kavinsky still stands by the car, the dragon and night horror barrelling towards it.

          "Kavinsky!" Mercy screams. "Get away!"

Ronan and Matthew are still stumbling by the edge of the Mitsubishi. Looking around wildly, Mercy realises she only has the energy for one option. Looking between Kavinsky and Mallory, she has to make a decision: whether to save Kavinsky, Mallory and all his things remaining or to save the Ley Line and her new friends. Mallory seizes her face.

           "Just like old times," she says. "Remember?"

Mercy remembers skin, blonde hair and cherry suckers; she remembers closeness, warmth and solace, but not like this. Mercy shakes her head, red curls wild and crowding her face.

          "You aren't meant to exist." She says softly, riddled with guilt, pressing her lips to Mallory's one last time before pulling away.

With every single piece of her being, Mercy pours herself into her hands pressed against the earth and vines shoot from the ground. They capture Matthew and Ronan within their safe grip, ripping them away from the Mitsubishi. They're safe now. Rumbling, the dragon continues its pathway, colliding with Kavinsky and the Mitsubishi in a deadly explosion.

In the blink of an eye, he's gone.

Mercy feels Mallory fall limp in her arms. A sob claws its way through her throat as she buries her head into Mallory's blonde hair. Her chest rises and falls like she's sleeping, but Mercy knows she's gone. She squeezes her eyes closed, tears rolling down the expanse of her cheeks in fat drops. 

In the aftermath, she's left crying into the smouldering ashes of her past as Gansey and Blue try to pull her away from Mallory's body. 

only one more chapter of act one after this!! exciting stuff hehehe