The Barns were a thing of lore, bedtime stories and things whispered about around campfires when the night is cold and the sky is clear and uncertain light makes everything that much more believable.

There lives the Greywaren, Adam's uncle had once murmured, and then he'd been taken over by wracking coughs and had not elaborated. His tone had been enough to make Adam shiver.

His father had laughed scornfully and dismissed it as a childish whimsy, had berated him for even thinking about such things and cuffed him behind the ear.

His mother had used it as a kind of not-threat. Be good, Adam, or the Greywaren will set his night horrors on you.

They say, an old, ragged man had rasped from beneath his torn blanket, the coin Adam had dropped into his tin glinting in the sunlight, that he can make your dreams come to life. He can pull things from the very depths of his mind. That kind of power... Imagine the kind of things you could do. Boy, heed my advice and do not chase after him.

All through town, you could hear whispers of a man or a boy or something that wasn't quite human (he had heard rumors of horns and wings and teeth like knives) who lived in a brooding castle or a quiet cottage or a dark cave, tucked away in rolling hills and towering forests. Someone who's dreams had power,who carried answers to questions deep in the depths of his eyes, who had armies of creatures at his command.

He could wipe away all of your worries, he could make your life a true and living Hell, he could show you your deepest desires and set them down on the table before you as tangible things, he knew anything about everything. And once, because of this, when Adam had stolen a rare moment to himself and away from the grueling farm work, Gansey had found him and whispered in awe that if a Greywaren really did exist, he must have the answers about Glendower.

So, to find Glendower, they must find the Greywaren.

They had trecked and scavenged and scored, but it wasn't until Adam pushed his fingers into the earth of a forest that spoke Latin and your thoughts, and whispered the conditions of a deal, that they knew where to head.

His mind was filled with spurts of images, trails that burrowed deep beneath the earth and radiated a raw kind of energy. His fingers twitched, he found himself compelled to shift stones and bury seeds.

Gansey had watched him with barely veiled fascination and trailed after him on a trip that lasted a week and landed them breathless and awed at the top of a hill, looking down at a sprawling mass of structures and things that simply could not be and Gansey had whispered, We've done it, you've done it.

When they picked their way up the large dirt path and worked up every ounce of their courage to stand on the doorstep of the main building, Adam drew in a deep breath and took his knuckles to the door.

The door swung open and Adam's throat closed. His mind did a sort of check-off list: Horns, no. Wings, no. Human, yes. Probably.

The Greywaren (Adam assumed) was tall and barbed. High cheekbones, piercing eyes, thin mouth, sharp nose, strange markings crawling over his shoulders, hair cut down to his scalp. Looking at him, Adam could not imagine another expression on his face; all withering snarl and narrowed eyes.

Gansey, son of a Lord and student of many scholars, gave one of his signature grins that made inn-keepers croon, took a large and sure step forward, and swept into a low bow, "We give our most humble apologies for disturbing you, but we have traveled a long way and would ask that you at least lend us a moment of your time."

The Greywaren leaned against the door frame, folding his arms over his chest, eyelids falling half-closed. "My time comes with a price. I don't live all the way out here so that I can get visitors every day."

"Of course not," Gansey, still folded in half over himself, procured a substantially-sized satchel and rose enough to present it to the brooding Greywaren. "We come bearing gifts."

The contents, Adam knew, were priceless. Sparkling and massive uncut jewels, countless gold pieces, goblets, jewelry crafted by the most envied goldsmiths.

The Greywaren just laughed. Threw his head back and let his teeth glint threateningly and tossed his scorn into the sky. It made Adam's blood boil, made his hands tighten into fists and his chest shake and cave. The kinds of things he would do to get that kind of money, to earn it, and the Greywaren tossed it aside like it meant absolutely nothing... and it did.

"I don't want your money. Do you honestly think that I care about things like that?" His eyes snared on Gansey's as he spoke and Adam saw things bubbling under the surface of his irises. He saw spilled blood and years of isolation, he saw delicate creatures and blooming flowers, sleeping souls, he knew the price of sin, he felt the wrath of power. He shivered and his hands twitched and the forest whispered to him with a voice like wind in leaves.

In that second, the Greywaren turned his gaze on Adam for the first time since their arrival and his expression softened slightly with thought. "You. You know Cabeswater."

Cabeswater? he wanted to ask, but the forest murmured, Certe, sane quidem. Scio. Greywaren, Greywaren, Greywaren.

"Yes."

A smile pulled itself onto the Greywaren's features, "Ah. Then you can help me. Time for time. A favor for a favor."

Adam's breath rushed out of him in a single gust.

The Barns were a place of wonder. The Greywaren was an entire galaxy of conflictions trapped under skin and woven into bone.

His smiles were all teeth and no soul, he slammed things just for the sake of slamming them, and he wove curses together like the lyrics to a truly filthy song.

He also dreamt up impossible and wonderful things, he fed forest creatures from the palm of his hand, and he stayed awake with Gansey long after the sun had disappeared.

The Greywaren pulled together charts and dreamt up tools and made guesses about Glendower and in return, Adam walked with him through the forest and made small adjustments, he tended to dream things, he watched the Greywaren fall asleep empty-handed and wake up cradling mice or berries or blood.

And after a time, he felt his gaze on him like warm breath, he found gifts perched carefully on his nightstand. Adam now possessed a small hoard of things constructed by a strange mind.

It was on a warm and dully glowing afternoon, with grass tickling at his wrists and the Greywaren chewing at the bands around his, that Adam swallowed and found the strength to say, "Greywaren can't be your real name."

He was immediately assaulted with eyes so blue he almost wanted to recoil. "It's real enough."

Adam tapped his finger against the ground, once, twice. "If you're real with me, then I'll be real with you."

The Greywaren narrowed his eyes and the raven on his shoulder cawed and flapped her wings, egging him on. "Sounds fair."

Adam nodded, pulled at the grass next to his hip. "What do you want to know?"

When he sighed, the wind sighed with him. It lifted up the branches of trees, made them sway and their leaves shiver. The grass bowed to him, animals turned their heads when they sensed his presence. He was their creator, he was a being who's thoughts wielded more power than any other man's actions. What could someone like that ever want to know about someone like him?

"Anything," he said, like it was a challenge, like Adam only had one chance to turn and run. "Whatever you think that I should know."

A deep breath in, the wind did not breathe with him. He was only a farmer. "I'm just farmer and I don't know the first thing about magic. Cabeswater and I made a deal. It protects me and I... I am its hands and its eyes. I guess it protects me too."

Against the bright background of the hills, the Greywaren was a brooding and thoughtful creature. "I'm also a farmer and magic isn't what you think. Neither is Cabeswater."

"Then what is it?"

This made the corner of his mouth pull upward to match the barbed hook of the mark curling around his neck to brush his collarbone. "That's a secret worth much more than the one you gave me. Choose another."

Adam worked his jaw. "Alright. Then why the gifts? You don't seem like someone who's generally generous without reason."

Something shifted in his eyes, like the movement of a large and dangerous creature deep underneath the surface of the ocean. Just the barest shadow, enough to set teeth on edge but not enough to spur action. "I'm not."

Adam's eyebrow flicked upward, "That isn't the question that I asked."

He watched carefully as the Greywaren's eyes followed the movement and then fled back downward as soon as he began speaking, lingering around his mouth before snapping back to attention, holding his gaze. "Because I think that someone who's worthy of Cabeswater is worthy of me as well."

Adam nodded slowly, feeling like he was carefully and deliberately putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. "Alright. Your turn."

"Your childhood. Tell me about it." He said it almost wistfully and something deep inside Adam tugged almost to the point of snapping.

He let out a shallow laugh and shifted carefully so that he could face him better, "My childhood wasn't exactly ideal."

The expression on the Greywaren's face was quiet, "Neither was mine."

"My father hit me and my mother stood by and watched. All they kept me around for was the work." He said every word sharply, held the Greywaren's eyes and dared him to look away, "I was just a disappointment."

He expected a shocked expression, a quiet, I'm sorry. He got a storm brewing in the Greywaren's eyes, lightning crackling between his teeth. "No one deserves that."

"No, but it's what I got."

There was a moment when something faltered. Adam couldn't be sure if it was the Greywaren, his composure or his walls, or Adam himself, maybe his senses short-circuiting. It could have even been the air between them, a ripple in the atmosphere. "My name. My name is Ronan."

"Ronan," Adam said, and suddenly this was a person.

"Ronan Lynch," Ronan said, and suddenly he was exposed.

Now it was everything faltering at once. Adam, the Greywaren– Ronan, and the space between them.

And then it all pulled back together, a structure on the brink of collapsing suddenly finding stability again. The world froze, the air stilled, sound was a forgotten concept, and their lips pressed together, Adam's eyelashes fluttered, shaking fingers pressed into his jaw, and the wind sighed along with Ronan.

He had never been sure before now that the Greywaren was even human at all, but creatures do not have chapped lips and calloused fingertips and they do not smell like springtime and wildness.

Adam laid back, pulling Ronan with him, and his knees fit alongside Adam's hips like they'd been built to sit there.

His hands found the back of Ronan's scalp, fingers tracing over the rough stubble of his shaved head, and he pulled him closer, easing their mouths open clumsily, enjoying the fact that they were both just trying this out, testing the waters, testing each other.