19   working for the knife

Mercy is still sleeping when Gansey takes the Pig to pick Dr. Malory up from the airport. He took one look at the purple smudges underneath her eyes and her hands curling into the sheets before stepping out the room and closing the door to Monmouth behind him. But the redhead is none-the-wiser, surrounded by grass and trees, wretched greenery. She rests on the cliffside looking down upon where her mother once sat and lets her feet hang dangerously over the edge. Warm air brushes against the redness of her cheeks, and Mercy tips her chin to the sky to feel the sun. Sand doesn't crunch behind her, but she can feel Berlin's presence shift closer as they appear behind her. Her eyes fall closed, she's accepted her fate.

When their grey-pale hand reaches out, Mercy expects it to wrap around the skin of her neck, but instead it hangs, waiting for her to take it. She opens her eyes and takes their hand. They pull her up, sand crunching beneath her boots. Lead towards the open beach, Mercy recognises where Circe King kneeled in the shells and sand with an erratic disposition. Her heart pangs but she continues. A multicoloured pile of pills have been left behind in her death.

          "I see," Mercy says with her eyes closed, nodding slowly.

Something faintly familiar is pressed into her palm.

          "You're the last one." Berlin's breath tickles her ear, leaning close. "You are your own only hope."

Mercy peels open her eyes, pressing her fingers into the sand and watching it pool in the palm of her empty hand. A white pill bottle occupies her other hand. She pops open the cap and it's empty. Berlin's eyes flicker between the pills and the empty bottle as Mercy presses a finger to her nose. It's wet, black ichor inking the tips of her fingers. Delicately, she pulls her hand away and wipes it on the sand. The substance clings to her skin and Mercy's nose furrows. She's an echo of her mother: knelt on the beach with a myriad of pills before her. The same red hair, freely curling around the tops of her shoulders. The same emerald eyes, keenly focused on the multiple colours and the bottle in her hand. Mercy's head snaps to the side as a seagull calls the wind.

          "Didn't I already tell you no?" Mercy drawls. She shoves the pill bottle into the sand and wraps her arms around her knees after pulling them to her chest. "That should be enough for you to stop."

Berlin seizes her chin in their fingers, wrenching Mercy's eyes to face their own. They snarl, animalistic and wretched. " Do you want to die?"

          "What reason do I have for living?" Mercy raises her brow.

Berlin brushes a hand through the air, rippling like heat waves against the horizon. There's an image: Ronan crossing his arms as they lean together, Mercy's chin hooking onto his shoulder, Adam on the grass with a backpack tucked underneath his head beside a furiously writing Gansey and Blue's patchwork jumper acting as Mercy's blanket. Monmouth Manufacturing's large windows and Noah's flickering form tucked underneath the sheets as they stare into the starlight together. Mercy shoves away Berlin, nails scratching their perfect suit and leaving faint white lines in the fabric.

          "Think, Little Spider," they say. "You know their fate if they continue to search for Glendower. If you help them, you can save yourself."

          "I am nothing to save." Mercy replies. "Leave."

Berlin sneers but still disappears.

Before waking up, Mercy pulls every individual pill from the sand and slips them into the white pill bottle, waking up with a running nose and black-stains in her floral printed covers. 

Henrietta passes by in shades of green, gold and blue against the freshly paved road beneath the car's tires. The town, a spritely maze of unforgiving dreams, is bright. The sun is shining golden light against Mercy's open window, careful strands of red hair reflecting it's warmth. She lets her hands ride the air, moving her fingers in a wave pattern with a small smile. It's childish, but it's her moment to keep. There's no Belin tailing her like a phantom presence—only the ley line and Mercy. She looks over, unpropping her chin from the window. In the passenger seat, grey-haired Malory has yet to stop talking; in the seat beside Mercy, Adam Parrish has yet to speak. It doesn't take long for them to find themselves off the side of the road, milling in front of a tripod in the crisp air. Mercy's spine shivers every time somebody utters Malory's name but stands tall, ironclad in her expressions.

The doctor is still speaking, lecturing loudly. "The procedure of ley hunting is quite different in the States! In England, a true ley must have at least one aligned element — church, barrow, standing stone — every two miles, or is it considered coincidental. But of course here in the colonies," Mercy's nose furrows, "everything is much further apart. Moreover, you never had the Romans to build you things in wonderfully straight lines. Pity. One misses them."

          "I do miss the Romans," Gansey says, provoking a smirk from Adam.

Mercy kicks the dirt.

          "And although your line is now awake and profound — positively profound — with energy, the secondary line we're looking for today is n—" Malory trips over the Dog. "Curses!"

The Dog looks at Malory without expression. Mercy crouches, reaching a hand towards the quiet creature and trailing it down his back, scratching lightly.

          "Hand me that pencil." Malory says to Adam, taking it from him and marking something on the map. "Go sit in the car!"

Mercy's head snaps up. Is he talking to Adam?

          "Excuse me?" Adam asks, politely but shell shocked.

          "What did you just say to him?" Mercy demands, eyes narrowed and tone pointed.

          "Not you!" Malory barks. "The Dog!"

Mercy rises as Adam taps a single finger against his wrist and the dog retreats to the car. Insects buzz, wings brushing against skin and she swats them away, eyeing a deep-in-thought Gansey. Something buzzes on his cheek, but he makes no move to swat it away. Mercy grips the sleeves of her turtleneck with black-painted nails and revels in the pressure against the flat of her palms. It's breezy, fluid and shrill air moving through her hair in a light wind, travelling from mountain to open fields. She flicks away another fly, lip curling.

          "Talk me through what you're doing." Gansey says before correcting. "Us. Talk us."

          "Your save is tied to the ley line, and it has no fixed location. Therefore, if we're looking for a cave to join up with it, there's no sense searching for ordinary cave entrances. Only an entrance on a ley will do. And as your cave mapping suggests that you were travelling perpendicular to the ley instead of along it, I believe the cave network in its entirety exists on multiple lines. So we seek a crossroads!" Malory says, adopting a voice akin to a teacher. Pointing to something on a map that Gansey has once heavily annotated, he taps. "Tell me, what is this?"

Gansey lifts Malory's finger. "Spruce Knob. Highest peak in West Virginia. Forty-five hundred feet or something like that."

          "Something like that." Mercy parrots in agreement, nodding.

          "Highest peak in Virginia?" Malory echoes.

          "West," Gansey and Adam correct at the same time.

          "West Virginia," Gansey repeats. "Sixty miles west of here. Seventy, perhaps?"

Malory drags his fingertip across the map. "And what's this?"

Mercy's eyes flicker. "Coopers Mountain."

Gansey looks at her. She looks back.

Malory clears his throat, breaking their gazes and taps a different spot on the map. "What's this note? Giant's Grave?"

          "It's another name for the mountain." Gansey says.

The professor raises his eyebrows. "Interesting name for the new world."

          "Why is it interesting?" Adam asks.

          "Kings were often giants in British mythology." Gansey begins answering. "A lot of British locations associated with kings have the word giant in them, or are giant-sized. There's a mountain in Wales, what is it ... Idris? Dr. Malory, help me."

          "Cadair Idris." Mercy answers before Malory can.

Gansey looks at Mercy again.

She shrugs. "My mother told me about it when I was little."

          "Right." Gansey says. He turns to Adam. "It translates to the chair of Idris, who was a king, and a giant, and so the chair in the mountain is giant-sized, too. I got permission to hike on Giant's Grave — there was some rumour of Native American graves on there, but I couldn't find them. No cave there, either."

Malory continues to trace the highlighter line. "And this?"

          "Mole Hill. Used to be a volcano. It's out in the middle of a flat field. No cave there, either, but lots of geology students."

Malory's finger falls on the last location. "And this is us, yes? Mass-a-nut-ten. My, this line of yours. I've waited a lifetime to see something like it. Remarkable! Tell me, there must be others prowling around poking at it as well?"

          "Yes," Adam answers immediately.

Quieter, Adam says to Mercy and Gansey, "Because of Mr. Gray."

          "The line is protected." Mercy says, crossing her arms

          "What did you say your name was again?" Malory asks.

          "King." Mercy replies. "Mercy King."

Malory hums. He turns away, clapping Gansey's shoulder. "Lucky for you three that this young man has a better ear than most; he'll hear that king long before anyone else has thought to even listen. And you have a King on your side, lucky indeed. Now, let us flee this coarse place before it rubs off. Here! To Spruce Knob. By the way of these other two lumps."

Mercy guides Malory towards the car with stones kicking beneath her shoes but as he begins talking to the Dog, she turns back, feigning plans to aid Gansey in his collecting of his equipment. Adam and Gansey hush as she approaches. Mercy runs a hand through her red-hair, smacking her lips.

          "What did he mean?" Adam questions Mercy. "About us being lucky because we have a King on our side?"

Mercy's eyes flick to Gansey. "I'm assuming you read about my family."

Gansey nods.

          "My family has been in Henrietta a very long time, Adam Parrish, longer than any other bloodline." Mercy says. She looks down, kicking the dirt into clouds at her feet. "Carys King was an advisor for Glendower. Maybe something more, my mother was never certain on the details. Carys was a Greywaren like me but something..." Mercy trails off "...something happened when they were putting Glendower to rest. She was banished to stay here in Henrietta and watch. Watch what we can no longer live without."

          "That doesn't tell me what he meant." Adam says.

          "It means my family has never left Henrietta. It means my mother knew where the entrance was." Mercy replies. "And now she's dead. So something doesn't want us there but it's our job to find out either way."