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

by Maggie Stiefvater

“Maura?” Adam called. “Maura?” Only it was Persephone’s voice coming out of Adam’s mouth. I can’t do this, Blue thought suddenly. Her heart couldn’t manage it, being afraid. Calla’s other hand reached across

beats. The candles went out in the scrying bowl. “PERSEPHONE!” he shouted. “Now,” Calla said, releasing Blue’s hand. “Let go of him!” Blue released his hand, but nothing happened. “Cut him off,” Calla snarled. “I know you can. I’ll pull him back!”

He’s trusting us. He never trusts anyone, and he’s trusting us. He’s trusting you, Blue.

“Come on, you bastard! Remember your body!” Blue turned her back on the scene. She closed her eyes. And she did it. There was silence. Then the overhead lights came on and Adam’s voice said, “She’s here.” Blue spun. “What do you mean, here?” Calla demanded. “Here,” Adam said. He shoved out of his chair. “Upstairs.” “But we checked her room,” Calla said. “Not in her room.” Adam waved a hand impatiently. “The highest — where’s the highest place?” “The attic,” Blue said. “Why would she be up there? Gwenllian —?”

She tore open the attic door and charged up first, Blue and Adam close on her heels. At the top of the stairs, she said, “No.” Blue jumped past her. In between Neeve’s two mirrors was a pile of lace, canvas, and — Persephone.

“We’ll get her back,” Adam said. But Calla was already crying. Blue, unconcerned with dignity, dragged Persephone out by her armpits. She was light and unresisting.

Calla did: “She’s dead.”

Blue had never believed in death until then. Not in a real way.

It didn’t happen to people she had always known. But it did.

the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn’t believe, and the one who did.

Maura, Persephone, and Calla were the trunk from which all of the branches sprang.

“You did your best. Calla told me on the phone. She’s proud of you. It’s not going to feel any better now, Parrish. Don’t expect it to.”

“I’m going with you,” Calla said, her knuckles tight around a glass. “Enough of this flying solo nonsense. I’m so angry I could …”

“I didn’t see him. Look, I told Calla we were going into the cave. To find Maura.” He corrected, more formally, “Your mother.” “Oh, seriously! Don’t Richard Gansey on me!” Blue snapped, and then, at once, she began to cry.

“Queens and kings Kings and queens Blue lily, lily blue Crowns and birds Swords and things Blue lily, lily blue”

“How did you use other people’s eyes if you’re just like me?” Blue asked. “If you don’t have any psychic powers of your own.” Gwenllian’s mouth hung in the most dismissive shape possible. “This question! It is like asking how you can smash a nail if you are not a hammer.” “Whatever,” Blue said. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t really care.” “Artemus taught me,” Gwenllian said. “When he wasn’t working one-two-three-four my father. Here’s a riddle, my love, my love, my love, what grows, my love, my love, my love, from dark, my love, my love, my love, to dark, my love, my love, my love.”

Both of the boys were unsettling — Adam Parrish, in particular, had a curious face. Not as in, he was a curious person. But rather that there was something peculiar about his facial features. He

Ronan Lynch smiled then, too, and it was a weapon. They left the envelope there. “Piper!” Greenmantle called after they had gone.

Individually, they were distasteful. Collectively, they were damning. The envelope contents told a story of Colin Greenmantle, intellectual mass murderer and habitual pervert. It provided evidence of where the bodies, and parts of bodies, could be found. There were screenshots of condemning texts and cell phone photos — and when Greenmantle swiped up his real phone, he discovered that, somehow, they actually were on his phone in all their gruesome glory. There were letters, homemade DVDs, photographs, a mountain of evidence.

looked true. Truer than the truth. The Greywaren was real, and those two boys had it, but it didn’t matter, because they were untouchable, and they knew it. Damn youth.

you showing up and throwing your weight around. I was here first, and I had plans. Men, do man things.”

“Piper,” he said. “You just shot that man.” “No one else was doing anything, seriously. All of this dick slinging!” Piper said. To the Gray Man, she said, “Drag him into the cave.”

“I’m just going to … head back. Don’t get me wrong, I think you look fantastic with the gun, but …” “This is just. So. Typical. You always say, ‘We’re going to do this together, you and me,’ and then who ends up always doing it? Me, while you go start some other new project. Fine. Go on back. Don’t expect me to hurry back after you, though.”

down her unsmoothable hair. Blue knew that she was feeling everything that Blue couldn’t say, but she was okay with that. Words were impossible.

Please trust me please stay here please trust me please stay here please don’t die Finally, Calla said, “Grounding. I’m good for grounding. I will stay here and ground you.”

“Say it,” Ronan told Gansey. “Say what?” “Excelsior.” “That’s onward and upward,” Gansey said. “It means to ascend. That’s opposite.” “Oh, well,” Ronan said. “Squash one, squash two, squash three on and on and on —”

“You’ll never be a king,” Gwenllian said. “Don’t you know how war

“Gansey?” “Adam,” Gansey shouted. “Adam?” The voice came up again. “We’re coming back to show you the way down!”

“It’s an Irish elk.” He turned to find her beside him, touching one of the great white bones. She ran her finger along it so tenderly that it was as if it were alive. “They’re extinct,” she added. “I always felt bad that I’d never get to see one. Look how many of them there are.”

you’re the only one with a right to bitterness here? Why don’t you use your skills of seeing beneath to encourage instead of tear down?” “I would like to see quite a bit of what’s going on beneath all of the young men here,” Gwenllian

tossed its massive antlers and twisted, but she clung on. Adam couldn’t believe it. “Yes —” Ronan said, and snatched at a deer, and another, before he seized the ruff of a primordial creature and pulled himself on.

Ronan’s and Blue’s beasts leaping through the diminished cave passage, right before it disappeared.

“No,” she said out loud. “No. No.” But her mother’s face kept floating, deader and deader, after all this, and Blue heard herself making a thin, awful sound. Be sensible — Blue couldn’t make herself so. Drag her out.

The arms around her were trembling, too, but they were iron tight, scented with sweat and moss. “It’s not real,” Ronan told her, voice low. “It’s not real, Blue.” “I saw her,” Blue said, and she heard the sob in her voice. “My mother.” He said, “I know. I saw my father.” “But she was there —” “My father’s dead in the ground. And Adam saw your mother farther on in this godforsaken cave. That lake is a lie.”

Ronan holding her as tightly as he would hold his brother Matthew, his cheek on her shoulder. Every time she thought she could go on, she saw the face of her mother’s corpse again. Finally, she pulled back, and Ronan stood up. He looked away, but not before she saw the tear he flicked from his chin. “Fuck this,” he said again.

But you’ll be waiting in darkness. Nor did she say, If I vanish immediately into the lake, you’ll have to find your way out of here sightless.

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

She turned to find Ronan crouched down a few feet up onto dry land, arms wrapped around his knees, already waiting for the darkness to take him. When he met her eyes, he gave her an unsmiling salute before she turned back around.

“Don’t let me move!” “What?” “I won’t be able to prevent myself from opening it, now that there’s three of us!” Blue glanced over at the man. His brow had furrowed deeper. “We should just go,” Blue said. “How did you get across the lake?”

Huh. Hi, Dad. Then she thought, Really, with these genetics, I should be taller.

“Sargent?” “I found her! There’s another way out! Can you manage to get out the way we came?” Another pause. “Yeah.” “Then go!” “Really?”

“How are you able to bear it?” His voice was — accented. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. It was something like British, but clipped, as if English was not his native language.

“I’m a mirror, I guess. I’ve just turned it back on itself.” “But that’s not possible,” Artemus said.

“You, sir, have a lot of suppositions that you’re considering fact, and I think, in a better time, you should take a long think about everything you’re sure is true. But for now, tell me if I can drag her out of this place and up that hole. That is the way out, right?” He twisted his hands so the light showed on her a bit better. “You do, in fact, look a little like her.” “Good God, man,” Blue said. “Are you still on that? Do you know who else I look a little like? Your face. Have a think on that and I’ll just figure this out myself.”

Open the door and you’ll all go free, and with a favor. Surely you want to save that boy’s life.

“Listen to me. Take them and go. I’ve earned this. This is how I’ve lived and this is what it’s come to. You haven’t done anything to deserve this, nor has your mother. Now is the time to be a hero.” “Listen to the man,” Piper said. “When he says ‘earned this,’ he means that he held a gun to my head in my own kitchen, and he’s right.”

return. Leaning her cheek against his stubble, she whispered, “I wish I could remember how you said that hero bit in Old English.” The Gray Man said it. “Sounds like cat puke,” Piper observed. “What’s it mean?” “ ‘A coward’s heart is no prize, but the man of valor deserves his shining helmet.’ ”

“Unless you have hidden reserves of strength you didn’t display on the way down, we cannot carry her and Maura, and I know which one I prefer. We need to go.”

“I’m so so so sorry. I’m going to buy you a car and make your bedroom bigger and all we’ll ever eat is yogurt and …”

“Who are you, anyway?” “My name is Neeve.”