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

by Maggie Stiefvater

Afterward, Piper said, “If we had a puppy, it could pick up those beans for us.” Greenmantle had replied, “And then we could sacrifice it and use its blood to activate the doll.” “Will you marry me?” she asked. He thought about it. “I love myself the most, though. Are you okay always coming in second?” “Samesies,” she replied. Then she cut herself and smeared her blood on the doll’s forehead, a level of personal involvement that Greenmantle had yet to achieve.

i love how they're clinically insane

“You’re cut off,” he said, pulling her away. He noticed a tarot card — the three of swords — sitting on the edge of the bathroom sink. “It’s time to stare at me now.”

boys around them laughing and calling to one another, making space for the three of them because this had been a thing for so long: Gansey-Lynch-Parrish.

He was getting that odd time-slipping feeling that the campus often gave him: the sense that he had always been standing in this old room in this old building, or someone had, and all times and all people were the same. 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.

A shout, a crash, Adam’s name — He didn’t remember the decision to move, only his feet already running to the door.

Gansey leaned and Adam pulled him in even closer, gripping his shoulder tightly. Right into Gansey’s ear, he whispered, voice tinged in disbelief, “I didn’t — I just asked — I just thought —” “Thought what?” Gansey asked. Adam released him. His eyes were on the circle around him. “I thought that. And it happened.” The circle was absolutely perfect: dust without, dustless within. “You marvelous creature,” Gansey said, because there was nothing else to say.

Ronan’s smile was sharp. Now Gansey recognized the expression on Ronan’s face: arrogance. He had not been afraid for Adam. He had known Cabeswater would save him. Been certain of it.

Gansey thought of how strange it was to know these two young men so well and yet to not know them at all. Both so much more difficult and so much better than when he’d first met them. Was that what life did to them all? Chiseled them into harder, truer versions of themselves?

they all make me fucking sick

He wondered if he was going to go through each year of his life thinking about how stupid he’d been the year before.

Part of him wished that he wasn’t doing this without the others

codependency💞💞💞

But now — no. He still didn’t want them to remember this part of him. He only wanted them to see the new Adam. Persephone had told him that no one had to know his past if he didn’t want them to.

In the hall stood Richard Campbell Gansey III in his school uniform and overcoat and scarf and gloves, looking like someone from another world. Behind him was Ronan Lynch, his damn tie knotted right for once and his shirt tucked in. Humiliation and joy warred furiously inside Adam.

Now that he stood directly beside Adam, not looking at him, Adam could see that he was a little out of breath. Ronan, behind him, was as well. They had run. For him.

Gansey turned to Adam, finally. He was still wearing his glorious kingly face, Richard Campbell Gansey III, white knight, but his eyes were uncertain. Is this okay?

Now he could see that it wasn’t charity Gansey was offering. It was just truth. And something else: friendship of the unshakable kind. Friendship you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come back stronger than before.

He trusted his skills on his own. His emotions he trusted on his own. He could hurt no one in an empty room. No one could hurt him. He was unknowable. Except that he wasn’t. So he asked Blue Sargent to come with him when he finally went to do what Cabeswater had asked him to do weeks before.

his palms was his heartbeat or the ley line. “I know what you mean,” Noah said from the backseat. He was draped over the passenger headrest like a sweater with a body still in it.

Blue stood a few feet away. She wore a big boxy T-shirt, teal shorts, combat boots, and socks that came up over her knees. Only four inches of bare skin were visible, but they were a really nice four inches.

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

little car’s breathing. Then Noah said, “You do have nice legs, though.” Blue swung at him. A helpless laugh escaped Adam, and she hit his shoulder, too.

The best and worst thing about Blue Sargent was that she meant what she said; she really would walk herself back to Henrietta if he stopped now. He grimaced at her. She grimaced back.

Noah cackled and showed them the cassette. It boasted a handmade label marked with Ronan’s handwriting: PARRISH’S HONDAYOTA ALONE TIME. The other side was A SHITBOX SING-ALONG.

Blue and Noah horsed around as Adam retrieved his tarot cards.

Noah reappeared. He plucked four and a half oak leaves out of Blue’s spiky hair and blew some leaf crumbs from the bridge of Adam’s nose. “It’s safe.” Adam was glad to have them with him.

So she stayed by Adam, shoulder pressed to his, and Adam found he was glad for this, too. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched him, and it was strangely grounding.

Leaning over the pool, Adam saw his face. He hadn’t noticed that he didn’t look like everyone else until he got to high school, when everyone else started noticing. He didn’t know if he was good-looking or bad-looking — only that he was different-looking. It was up to interpretation whether the strangeness of his face was beautiful or ugly.

He had not known to be born afraid, but he’d learned.

Maybe it was good that the world forgot every lesson, every good and bad memory, every triumph and failure, all of it dying with each generation. Perhaps this cultural amnesia spared them all. Perhaps if they remembered everything, hope would die instead.

“And then you stopped breathing,” Noah said. He slunk to his feet. “I told you. I told you it was a bad idea, and nobody ever listens to me. ‘Oh, we’ll be fine, Noah, you’re such a worrywart’ and next thing you know you’re in some kind of death thrall. Nobody ever says, ‘Noah, you know what you were right thanks for saving my life because being dead would suck.’ They just always —”

He left bloody fingerprints on the rock, but there was something satisfying about that. I was here. I exist. I’m alive, because I bleed.

As the winds buffeted them, Noah slung a comradely arm around Blue’s shoulders and another around Adam’s and pulled them to him. They staggered back toward the trail. Blue’s arm was linked around the back of Noah, and her fingers grabbed Adam’s T-shirt so that they were one creature, a drunken six-legged animal. Adam’s hand was throbbing with the beat of his heart. Probably he was going to bleed to death on the way back down the mountain, but he was okay with that. Suddenly, with Noah to his side and Blue next to him, three strong, Adam remembered the woman he had seen in the pool.

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

Gansey’s mother used to press her thumb to that place between Richard Gansey III’s brows and rub the frown out; she still did it to Gansey II. He felt the urge to do it now as Adam tipped his face up.

“That took forever,” she said. “My phone was off. I’m sorry.” She chipped another bit of polish onto the shaggy rug. “I guess there was no point to hurrying anyway.” Ah, Blue.

It was against the rules, but Gansey crouched down beside her, one of his knees against her back, one against her knees, and hugged her. She curled against him, hands balled up against his chest. He felt a hot tear slip into the dip of his collarbone. He closed his eyes against the sun through the window, burning hot in his sweater, foot falling asleep, elbow grinding into the metal bed frame, Blue Sargent pressed up against him, and he didn’t move.

and two young men standing very close. It was, in fact, Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch.

He was an alien, handsome specimen of this western Virginia species; feather-boned, hollow-cheeked, eyebrows fair and barely visible. He was feral and raw-boned by way of those Civil War portraits. Brother fought brother while their farms ran to ruins — And Ronan Lynch looked like Niall Lynch, which was to say, he looked like an asshole.

They continued standing there, looking like a pair of horror movie twins, one dark, one light.

He said, “If you’re not out of Henrietta by Friday, everything in that envelope comes true.” Ronan Lynch smiled then, too, and it was a weapon.

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.

Suddenly full of misgiving, she flicked out her switchblade. “Are you the real Ronan?” He scoffed. “I’m serious.” “Yes, maggot,” Ronan said.

Suddenly, she felt arms around her, yanking her away from the lake’s edge. 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.”

For a moment they remained that way, 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.

MY BABIES😭😭😭😭

She touched her lip — this reminded her of Gansey, and she stopped.

Ducking his head, he pulled off his ghost light and hung it over her shoulder. She didn’t bother to say, 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. Because he’d already known both these things when he’d given it to her.

Instead she said, “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.

She wished so much for the presence of the boys, or Calla, or her mother, or — she had so

many people that she took for granted, all the time. She had never needed to be truly afraid before. There had always been another hand to catch her, or at least to hold hers as they fell together. Blue