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

by Maggie Stiefvater

Blue felt less unequal in the group. Not because she knew Ronan any better — but because she felt as if maybe Gansey and Adam now knew him less. He challenged them all to learn him again.

“Thanks for the super helpful alternative suggestions, Ronan Lynch. Your contribution at the end of the world will be tallied accordingly,”

“Your exit, dick!” Ronan snapped. Or Dick. It could have been either, really.

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

Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.

Death, the Empress, the Devil. Three sleepers,

Your vote counts double because you’re a Caucasian with great hair.

As they moved through the old barn, Adam felt Ronan’s eyes glance off him and away, his disinterest practiced but incomplete. Adam wondered if anyone else noticed. Part of him wished they did and immediately felt bad, because it was vanity, really: 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.

OH HE KNOWS

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

This wasn’t the Gansey she’d seen in the kitchen earlier; this was the Gansey she secretly called at night.

“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I kiss you,” he whispered. “Maybe it’s only if you kiss me.”

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.

The scent of Cabeswater, all trees after rain, drifted past Adam, and he realized that while he’d been looking at Ronan, Ronan had been looking at him.

It was possible that there were two gods in this church.

He was trying not to look like he cared about watching himself die. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe this happened all the time. What a fool Adam was to think he knew anything about Ronan Lynch.

“Witches, my little floral cushion. That’s what we are.”

They knew everything about him. What a lie unknowable was. The only person who didn’t know Adam was himself.

How arrogant we are, Adam thought, to deliver babies who can’t walk or talk or feed themselves. How sure we are that nothing will destroy them before they can take care of themselves. How fragile they were, how easily abandoned and neglected and beaten and hated. Prey animals were born afraid. He had not known to be born afraid, but he’d learned.

The enormity of the world grew and grew inside Adam, and he didn’t know if he could hold it. He was just a boy.

Two is a terrible number. Two is for rivalry and fighting and murder.” “Or marriage,” Adam said, thinking. “Same thing,” Persephone replied.

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.”

Desire and dread lay right next to each other in his heart, each sharpening the other.