Opal (The Raven Cycle, #4.5)

by Maggie Stiefvater

“I can’t hold it all in my head at the same time,” he’d said once. “What I want it to be. I can’t make a new one without the old one to help me focus. What’s the phrase for that?” “Self-defeating,” Adam had replied. “Fuck you. Catch-22. That’s what I meant.” “You dreamt the first Cabeswater without a Cabeswater.” “I just need it to not suck.” “I feel like there are more useful parameters. Like the amount of dream charge it could focus for you versus the amount of attention it draws.” “Good thought, Parrish. We need to dream you a new car, after all.” Opal, eavesdropping, had not quite followed the gist of the conversation — she was still better in the old dream language that waking Ronan never spoke — but she could tell that Adam liked it when Ronan talked like this. Sometimes they would stop talking and instead begin kissing, and Opal would eavesdrop on this as well. Her capacity for voyeurism was boundless and incorrigible. They were always coming together in surprising moments, going from easygoing to urgent in the space of a few breaths. She watched them kiss messily in the car in the driveway and she watched them tangle around each other in the laundry room and she watched Adam unbuckle Ronan’s belt and slide his hand against skin.