Opal (The Raven Cycle, #4.5)

by Maggie Stiefvater

Ronan and Adam were both gone in Ronan’s car, and a lady who Opal had not seen before came to the house. She was dark-haired and pale-skinned with furious light blue eyes that Opal at first thought were all white except for the pupil. Ronan was not there to tell Opal it was all right for this visitor to see her, so Opal hid herself and watched the lady stalk through the mist to the back door. The lady tried the doorknob and the doorknob shook its head no, but then she opened her purse and did something else to the doorknob and the door said yes and opened for her. The lady stepped inside and Opal hurried to follow her. She could not go as fast as she liked because hooves were noisy on the wood floor, so she had to drop to her hands and knees to crawl. To her surprise, once she was close, she could feel that this lady had dreamstuff in her. She was not all dreamstuff — in fact, she seemed to be very little dreamstuff. She was mostly animalness. This was the first person Opal had met beside Ronan who shared both.