Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3)

by Maggie Stiefvater

Time and space were bathtubs that Maura splashed in.

Whatever they were to this forest, Ronan was more to it.

He was himself, but more powerful. Himself, but less human.

“Blame the poets. It’s easier to stir people to rebellion if they think they’re on the side of a demigod or some chosen one. Never trust a poet. They —”

Adam’s expression was ferocious and pleased; Gansey was at once proud to know him and uncertain he did at all.

“Why couldn’t he have something normal like a raven?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about how I saw one of Niall Lynch’s sons today.” “Was he a bastard, too?”

Gansey, his best friend, his stupid and kind and marvelous best friend.

But what she didn’t realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another.

There was no point telling himself not to fight with Ronan. They would fight again, because Ronan was still breathing.

“Hey, I heard this great song,” he said. Gansey tried to tune out the sound of a raven horking down a hot dog. “Want a listen?”

See, Adam Parrish is wantable, worthy of a crush, not just by anyone, someone like Ronan, who could want Gansey or anyone else and chose Adam for his hungry eyes.

“You want to see what I’ve been working on?” Ronan asked. All casual. “Sure,” Adam replied. All casual.

is it casual now??

Someone like him treating someone like Adam as someone worthy —

Ronan shook his head. He didn’t care if it was impossible. He was going to do it anyway.

Ronan said, “Matthew’s mine. He’s one of mine.”

“Don’t tell the others,” Gansey said. “I’m dead,” Noah replied. “Not stupid.”

“Ronan, tell me now if I have to leash you, because I will,” Gansey said.

Oh, I’d be afraid of me, too, young knight. I could get you pregnant!

wild

“A lot,” Ronan translated, and he was right, because, strangely enough, Ronan knew a great deal about how Adam worked. It was possible Adam had always been aware of this but had preferred to consider himself — particularly the more unsightly parts of himself — impenetrable.

“Weapons and poetry go hand in hand.”

In that formless place, he found himself intensely grateful for Ronan and Adam waiting outside for him, for Blue and her family, for Noah and for Malory. He was so grateful to have found all of them, finally.

Gansey’s heart was a gaping chasm of possibilities, fearful and breathless and awed.

It was amazing that she and Ronan didn’t get along better, because they were different brands of the same impossible stuff.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was being sort of a dick.” Noah replied, “We weren’t going to say it.” “I was,” Blue said.

As Gansey shut the door behind him, he heard Adam say, “I don’t want to talk,” and Ronan reply, “The fuck would I talk about?”

“You know, you’re not such a shithead.” “No,” Ronan replied, “really I am.”