“I don’t react well to threats,” Adam acknowledged, because he hadn’t reacted very well, and they’d fought. “But l don’t want you to be sorry for it. That threat made me respect you. I was impressed. You’re formidable.” His hands strayed restlessly over the cover of of the book, then crept forward to pluck at the bed. His fingers wouldn’t stay still, but Adam didn’t care as long as they kept from touching Alec.

“My friend Gansey—my best friend—was on a quest to find a dead Welsh king, said to be sleeping on the ley line. We thought to wake it up, to lead us to him, but it was more complicated than that. More dangerous than that. And there were others who wanted to wake the ley line, to take advantage of its power. We all knew that it took a sacrifice to wake the ley line.” Adam’s expression was distant as he spoke, gazing at a spot on the bed between them. “The others, they thought that meant murder. My Latin teacher... he murdered one of my friends. Would have murdered more of us, probably. Ronan and Gansey. None of them understood what sacrifice meant. So I did what had to be done.”

Adam turned over his hands, gazing at the palms. “I sacrificed myself.”