More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Gansey texted: Declan told me to tell you to get out of bed. Ronan texted back: why
Gansey texted back: don’t make me get on a plane I’m currently chained to one of the largest black walnut trees in Oregon
LOVE
With a sigh, Ronan took a photo of his elbow bent to make it look like a butt, texted it over, and got up.
On weekdays, he gave in to the impulse of adding to his strange herds. On weekends, he spent Mass regretfully apologizing to God for his hubris.
“Gasoline,” he snapped, angrier than he might have been because he knew he’d looked stupid, “you better not go far.” Gasoline was a dream creature that was cooler in theory than in practice—an enormous, minivan-sized boar, with small, intelligent eyes and wiry, metallic hair.
Ronan waved the rest of it away as he knelt beside one of his father’s sleeping cows, a delicate speckled gray speciman with one crooked horn. He patted her smooth, warm shoulder. “I’ve booked your flight. You get a window and an aisle.”
She was a raven and, like Ronan, all the parts that made her interesting were hidden from the casual glance.
So was Atom, which was nearly recognizable as Adam if you were listening hard.
He began to walk his cow balloon to the long barn, keeping a good hold on it. He didn’t think the leaf blanket would ever stop going up if he let go, and he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of the cow heading out to space.
“What, Declan? I’m trying to fucking tow a cow.”
“Matthew?” “Who else?” Declan said. “Do you have another brother you dreamed who’s fucking up?” A dreamer, a dream, and Declan: that was the brothers Lynch.
“Bring me the krek! There’s a cookie in it for you! Snack! Beef!” Ronan offered everything in his potential treat arsenal. “Cake! Cheese!” Cow and raven appeared ever smaller as they ascended. “Trash!” Ronan offered desperately, the one thing Chainsaw always desperately wanted and was not allowed to have. Chainsaw clamped claws onto the drawstring.
Ronan put it on his shoulder. “You still there? I was —” “I don’t want to know,” Declan said. “Get here when you can.”
“It’s a regular carnival,” Ronan said, slamming the passenger door. Why shut anything, seemed to be his motto, when you can slam it.
The real secret was this: Hennessy, Jordan, June, Brooklyn, Madox, Trinity. Six girls with one face. Hennessy had dreamt them all.
At the end of the day, this was the difference between Hennessy and Jordan. While Hennessy imagined flinging herself from a roof and falling, Jordan imagined flinging herself from a roof and flying.
Muna, a beautiful sort of shepherd mix with lush tufted black hair around her throat, like a fox. She seemed perfectly pliable until asked to do something she didn’t want to do—go out in the rain, come into a room for company to admire her. Then she would flop to the ground, a boneless rag doll, and have to be dragged, which was never worth it. This was Parsifal Bauer.
He was most flexible first thing in the morning, and then he slowly became worse as he grew more tired. By night, he was an impossibility of caged rules and desires, his mood secretive and gloomy.
His brother’s Declanisms never ceased to amaze Ronan; just when he felt he had reached peak Declan, he always dug deep and found another gear.
It took Ronan a moment to realize the doorman had assessed the two brothers—Declan in his bland gray suit and clean shoes, Ronan with his tats and boots and murder-crab-scratched face—and thought Ronan was the one leading this show.
“Ink on your skin means you’re hiding things,” he told Ronan. “That’s what breathing means,” Ronan replied.
“You boys have had more than your fair share of bad news. You’re like a podcast.
Even with large parcels tucked under one arm, she had a walk that seemed like there should be a slow-motion explosion occurring behind her.
Most men do not go to Mass every Sunday and most men do not fall in love with other men. And no one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life. No one brings dreams to life.
There was something terrible about the scene, in the complicity of it, in the way the woman was not saving herself, in the way they couldn’t tell if she was the client or the product.
“Beautiful lady, Bryde says if you want to kill someone and keep it a secret, don’t do it where the trees can see you.”
“The will is in the cedar box in our bedroom closet,” she said into his hair. Declan closed his eyes. He whispered, “I hate him.” “My dauntless Declan,” Aurora said, and then she slid softly to the floor. The orphans Lynch.
Her mother’s portraits had been a little famous before her death and now they were very famous. This was, Jordan discovered, because art always lasted longer when mingled with blood.
“You remind me of my brother.” “Congratulations,” she said. “On what?” “On having such a beautiful brother.”
Ronan dreamt of summer, of Adam.
The dream was made of longing for things just out of reach. It floated in the air like humidity. It washed up on the shore with the salt water. He sucked in more longing with every inhale, he exhaled some of his happiness on the other side. How miserable.
Ronan didn’t know how to make things right again, and he was afraid of making things more wrong. So he just texted him: dreamt of you.
Another: Sorry sent too soon quote is ‘Boudicca is the original goth. Ronan Lynch wishes he was that badass’ Another: Is badass one word or two
“Thank God,” Declan said, retrieving his car keys. “You can if you like,” Matthew said. “But I dressed myself.”
She was beginning to see that the expression that was always on his face might be pain. She was beginning to understand he might want to control everything he could because of the things he couldn’t.
Your father has the geis of blarney, Aurora often said. He has to tell stories or he’ll die. Geis of bullshit, Declan had replied once, and had promptly gotten sent to the cow shed to muck stalls in the cold.
Ronan reached, and the darkness reached back. Hold on, kid.
What do you do? I hope.
Fucking with free will felt distinctly uncatholic to him—one of those slippery slopes one is warned about.
But once he’d begun to explain the day to Adam, he couldn’t stop, not only because he needed to hear it said out loud, but because he needed to say it out loud to Adam.
“Most people aren’t like you, Ronan,” Adam went on. “They’re too afraid to put their necks out for nothing. There’s an element of—what do you call it? Self-defense. Survival. Not doing something risky without a good reason because bodies are fragile.”
“I just want to know,” Adam said finally, in a slightly different voice from before, “that when I come for break, you’ll be there.” “I’ll be here.”
It was possible that no two students at Aglionby had ever come away with such a thorough understanding of Latin (or, possibly, of each other).
“Cracker,” Ronan told Chainsaw. He held one out to her where she sat on her pooping-blanket on the couch. She had one eye on the desired saltine and one eye on the fire, which she didn’t trust. Every time it popped, she twitched with knowing suspicion. “Cracker,” he said again. He tapped her beak with it so that she’d pay more attention to him and less to the fire. “Kreker,” she croaked. He stroked the small feathers next to her large beak and let her have it.
“I heard,” she announced, “you’re the son of the Devil.” Declan Lynch did not turn his head as she approached, but she saw his mouth tense in a suppressed smile. He said, “That’s true.”
It was Hennessy’s tragedy, though, not Jordan’s. She said, “Less tragic than a murder. My mother’s was her own fault.” “One could argue,” Declan said, “my father’s was as well. Mm. Art and violence.”
Belonging in more than one world means that you end up belonging in none of them.”
this was a man who had been fed stories at some point and remembered how it was done.
Farooq-Lane could tell from Parsifal’s face that he did not, he very much did not, but he shot a quick glance at Farooq-Lane and said, “Thank you very much.” Parsifal Bauer had just been polite to another human being because of her. Miracles never ceased.
Black wasn’t properly a pigment, it was some kind of nanoshit, tiny bits and bobs that ate ninety-some percent of the light around them. NASA used it to paint astronauts so aliens couldn’t see them or something.
