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

by Maggie Stiefvater

She recalled one charged night on the side of a mountain, looking down at Henrietta lit like a fairy village. Home, he’d said, like it pained him. Like he couldn’t believe it.

“It was cowardice and stupidity,” Gansey said from the doorway. He leaned on the doorjamb, hands in pockets, as he often did. “I didn’t like good-byes, so I just abstained, and I didn’t think about the consequences.”

Gansey put a mint leaf in his mouth; it was impossible to not think of the night before, when he’d put one in hers.

“What do we do now?” Gansey asked. From the other room, Calla bellowed, “GO BUY US PIZZA. WITH EXTRA CHEESE, RICHIE RICH.” Blue said, “I think she’s starting to like you.”

Strangely enough, Ronan belonged here, too, just as he had at the Barns. This noisy, lush religion had created him just as much as his father’s world of dreams; it seemed impossible for all of Ronan to exist in one person. Adam was beginning to realize that he hadn’t known Ronan at all. Or rather, he had known part of him and assumed it was all of him.

“Gansey would hate this.” Because it was the worst kind of filth. Kings were not meant to drag their hems in this. “That’s why we’re not going to tell him.” He expected Ronan to balk on this point, too, but he just nodded. Two things they agreed on: protecting Gansey’s crumbling feelings, and lying by omission.

But Adam had seen what Ronan could do. He’d read the dreamt will and ridden in the dreamt Camaro and been terrified by the dreamt night terror. It was possible that there were two gods in this church.

Adam felt the startling inequality of their relationship: Ronan knew Adam, but Adam wasn’t sure he knew Ronan, after all.

“Yeah, good. Good. Look, maybe you should go, though. To the apartment, and I’ll meet you after I’m done.” “Why?” Ronan said, “Not everything in my head is a great thing, Parrish, believe it or not. I told you. And when I’m bringing something back from a dream, sometimes I can’t bring back only one thing.” “I’ll risk it.” “At least give me some room.”

The real Ronan had not moved; he’d woken exactly where he had fallen asleep. This dying Ronan was a copy.

“I said I didn’t want you here in case this happened, and now it has, and look at you.”

“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Ronan said. “I said get the hell away from me.”

Adam stood there for a long moment. He wiped the heel of his hand over his right eye and cheek, then dried it on his slacks. He climbed back into his bed and closed his eyes, hands balled to his chest, scented with mist and with moss. When he closed his eyes, Cabeswater was still waiting for him.

On top of that, Gansey had some sort of school commitment that he was cagey about, Ronan and Adam kept vanishing places together, and Noah couldn’t or wouldn’t come into 300 Fox Way. Blue was feeling a little as if she had been locked into a madhouse. Mom, it’s time for you to come home.

“It grows on you,” Mr. Gray said. He paused. “Like a cancer.” “Buh dum pa.” Both Blue and Mr. Gray enjoyed a laugh, and then were briefly silent as they realized it had been too long since they had been in the company of someone with their precise sense of humor, i.e., Maura Sargent. In the background, the Kinks played gently, the sound of Mr. Gray’s soul.

“I’m not, really, but I was used to it, I guess. It’s boring, but at least it’s not scary. Do you ever get scared? Or are you too badass for that?” He looked amused, but also like a badass, sitting quietly and efficiently behind the wheel of the car. “In my experience,” the Gray Man said, “the badasses are the most scared. I just avoid being inappropriately frightened.” Blue thought this seemed like a reasonable goal. After a pause, she said, “You know, I like you.” He glanced over at her. “I do, too.”

“THERE, THERE, LITTLE ANT,” Jesse said. “RECKON SHE GUARDED THE CAVE FOR HER TIME. NOW IT’S MY TURN.”

“So you’re saying you’re a mirror.” “Of the deepest blue,” Gwenllian whispered in Blue’s ear. She leapt back so that she could trace the shape of Blue in the air with her fingers. “Blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. All around. And me. It’s what we do.” “Oh. Our auras? Okay, sure. But Persephone says that you’re psychic, and I am definitely not.”

Maura was always shuffling the page of cups out of her tarot deck and showing it to Blue: Look, it’s you! Look at all the potential she holds!

Greenmantle thought it was probably time to finish this job and get the hell out of this place. Or maybe just get the hell out of this place.

Gansey-Lynch-Parrish. Mornings like this one were made for memories.

Cheng said, “You’re a prince among men, Dick Gansey.” “More like a man among princes,” muttered Adam. “You’ve got seven minutes, Gansey.”

But it was Adam’s name he’d heard. He saw that the topmost area of the scaffolding hung crookedly, the workmen staring down from their positions on the roof. Dust. That’s what the cloud was. From whatever had fallen from the scaffolding. The slate tiles. Adam.

Gansey shoved through the students. He saw Henry first, then Ronan, unharmed, but powdered like Pompeii corpses. He made eye contact with Ronan — Is it all right? — and he didn’t recognize Ronan’s expression. There was Adam.

“Parrish,” Gansey said when he got close. “Adam. What happened?” Adam’s eyes slid over to him but his head didn’t turn. It was the stillness that made him seem so other. Behind him, he heard Ronan say, “I like the way you losers thought Instagram before first aid. Fuck off.” “No, don’t fuck off,” Henry corrected. “Notify a teacher that there’s some men on the roof who are about to be sued.”

“It’s your bullshit signs,” Ronan suggested, looking vastly less concerned than Gansey felt. “They created a bullshit force field.” 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. Because he had just thought that these two worlds could not co-exist and yet here was Adam, both at once. Alive because of it.

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

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? “I told you,” Ronan said. “Magician.”

It was finally here. After all of the continuances, after months of waiting, it was the day of the court case.

He knew it would be impossible to hide the reason for his absence from Gansey and Ronan if he had to leave midmorning, and equally difficult to disguise where he’d been if he returned right after court. Part of him wished that he wasn’t doing this without the others — a shocking wish in light of the fact that only a few weeks before, the very idea that Gansey might even know about the court case had troubled Adam.

Why did he care if Gansey and Ronan saw this? They already knew. They knew everything about him. What a lie unknowable was. The only person who didn’t know Adam was himself. What a proud idiot you have been, Adam Parrish.

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.

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.

“Ronan Lynch here was at the incident,” Gansey said. “I thought his side of the story might be worthy. And I’ve been friends with Adam since day one here in Henrietta, and I’m glad to see this miserable business over. I’d like to be a character witness, if I could.”

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?

For so long, he’d wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam. 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. Adam held out his right hand, and Gansey clasped it in a handshake, like they were men, because they were men.

“Next time I’ll let you die,” Blue said. “You forget, Adam, when you’re pulling your special snowflake act, where I grew up. Do you know what the phrase is for when someone helps you during a ritual or a reading? It’s thank you. You shouldn’t have brought us if you wanted to do it alone.” He remembered this: He had been lost. Which meant that if he had come alone, he would have been dead now. “Sorry,” he said. “I was being sort of a dick.” Noah replied, “We weren’t going to say it.” “I was,” Blue said.

Suddenly, with Noah to his side and Blue next to him, three strong, Adam remembered the woman he had seen in the pool. He knew all at once who she was. “Blue,” he said. “I saw your mother.”

Adam said, “I’m …” He stopped. He was looking at the scrying bowl out of the corner of his eye, not dead-on. “You’re what?” Calla said. He finished, “I’m trusting you guys.” Blue held his hand a little tighter. Calla said, “We won’t let you fall.” The bowl shimmered darkly, and he looked into it.

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

And there would now forever be two Blues: the Blue that was before, and the Blue that was after. The one who didn’t believe, and the one who did.

There had been something immutable about the three women in 300 Fox Way — Maura, Persephone, and Calla were the trunk from which all of the branches sprang.

“I don’t want to talk,” and Ronan reply, “The fuck would I talk about?”

“There!” Calla shouted. “That’s what it’s like. Just destroyed for no purpose!” “I’ll get a vacuum,” Jimi said. “I’ll get a Valium,” Orla said. Calla stormed into the backyard.

Ah, Blue.

“Oh, seriously! Don’t Richard Gansey on me!” Blue snapped, and then, at once, she began to cry.

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.

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

This was right: Glendower should have ruled by request, not by command. This was the king he sought. “Will you go with us?” he asked.

It was, in fact, Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch. He looked down at them. They looked up.