Opal (The Raven Cycle, #4.5)

by Maggie Stiefvater

“Of course,” one of the other ladies had said. “Did you think you’d lost everything when Cabeswater died?” “Yes,” Adam had whispered, and Opal had felt a rush of love for him. She loved him the best when he was very sad or very serious or very happy. Something about his voice breaking filled her with feeling, and something about the vacancy of his expression when he was thinking hard felt like she was looking at a dream with nothing bad in it, and something about when Ronan made him laugh so hard that he couldn’t stop made her love him so hard that she felt sad because one day he would get old and die because

Adam had taken the cassette from Ronan’s hand, working Ronan’s fingers loose and putting his own fingers between them. For a moment Opal, hidden, had thought they were going to kiss. But instead, Ronan pressed his face against Adam’s neck

and Adam quietly put his head on top of Ronan’s head and they did not move for a long time.

“You’ll get into one of the others,” Ronan told Adam eventually. “You’re not going to have to make another list. It won’t be what you imagined, but it’ll be just as good.” “Remind me of that later.” “Count on it.” Adam looked a little less crumpled.

Sometimes bad ideas were so bad they looped right around until they became good ideas.

“I’m coming back,” he said. She tore up some more grass, but she felt a little less wobbly having heard him say it.