The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)

by Maggie Stiefvater

“Oh no,” he said. He hoped Ronan was listening. “Ronan did that all by himself. I don’t know when you both are going to see that only Ronan can keep himself in Aglionby. Some day, he has to pick for himself. Until then, you’re both wasting your time.”

Adam refolded the envelope. Gansey was going to be sick over this. For a brief, brief moment, Adam considered not sharing the letter until it was too late, but then he knew he didn’t have it in him. “I’ll make sure this gets to him.” “He’s moving out,” Declan said. “Remind Gansey of that. No Aglionby, no Monmouth.”

Gansey had always felt as if there were two of him: the Gansey who was in control, able to handle any situation, able to talk to anyone, and then, the other, more fragile Gansey, strung out and unsure, embarrassingly earnest, driven by naive longing. That second Gansey loomed inside him now, more than ever, and he didn’t like it.

On the outside, he knew he looked a lot like his father. On the inside, he sort of wished he looked more like the Camaro. Which was to say, more like Adam.

“You can use my energy, Noah. If that’s what you need.” Adam’s expression was enigmatic.

“Gansey would like me to. He likes all of his things in one place.” His voice was a little bitter, and after a pause, he added, “I shouldn’t say things like that. He doesn’t mean it badly. And we’re — it’s just, this place is Gansey’s. Everything in it is Gansey’s. I need to be an equal, and I can’t be, living here.” “Where do you live?” Adam’s mouth was very set. “A place made for leaving.”

“My mother used to say, ‘Don’t throw compliments away, so long as they’re free.’” His face was very earnest. “That one wasn’t meant to cost you anything, Blue.” Blue plucked at the hem on her dress, but she didn’t look away from him. “I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.”

Ronan’s smile cut his face, but he looked kinder than Blue had ever seen him, like the raven in his hand was his heart, finally laid bare.

“You’re enough now,” Blue said. “I missed you.”

“The same year Gansey was stung by hornets,” Adam said softly. Then he said, “‘You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.’”

“I can’t remember when I stopped being alive.”

“He was upset. He’d lost everything. If he’d been thinking straight, I don’t think he would’ve … he didn’t mean to … we were friends like — are you afraid of Gansey?” The boys didn’t answer; they didn’t have to. Whatever Gansey was to them, it was bulletproof. Again, though, Blue saw the shame flit across Adam’s expression. Whatever had transpired between the two of them in his vision, it was still worrying at him.

Noah said, “But you already know.”

Instead, he licked his lips and said, “I want that book of yours. And you’d better give me your cell phone, too.” Gansey thought he must have misheard. He asked, “Excuse me?”

Whelk produced a small, impossibly real-looking handgun from the pocket of his dark jacket. “That book you bring to class. And your cell phone. Hurry up.”

“The police called the school. I can’t believe it. After seven years. Now there’s going to be a million questions. It’s only going to take them two seconds to answer a lot of those questions with my name. This is all on you. Seven years and I thought I was — I’m screwed. You’ve screwed me.”

was a sound that had been made recognizable by hours of action-adventure movies and video games. Though Gansey had never heard it in person before, he knew exactly what sound a pistol made when the safety was taken off. Whelk placed the barrel of the gun on Gansey’s forehead.

The handgun trembled against Gansey’s forehead. Whelk said, “I can’t believe that you’re saying anything when I have a gun to your head. I can’t believe you would bother to say that.”

“You disgust me,” Whelk said, holding the book to his chest. “You think you’re invincible. Guess what. So did

“Maura said she’ll be back at midnight, so be done by then.” “She knows?” This was both Blue and Calla in unison.

Because the name of the man who’d called Neeve all those months ago was a rather peculiar one that Blue, by now, knew quite well: Barrington Whelk.

keep thinking about what would’ve happened if Whelk had shot Gansey today.”

When his father’s hand hit his cheek, it was more sound than feeling: a pop like a distant hammer hitting a nail.

Adam scrambled for balance, but his foot missed the edge of the stair and his father let him fall.

When the side of Adam’s head hit the railing, it was a catastrophe of light. He was aware in a single, exploded moment of how...

“To do this,” Ronan Lynch snarled, smashing his fist into the side of Robert Parrish’s face. Beyond him, the BMW sat, the driver’s side door hanging open, headlights illuminating clouds of dust in the darkness.

Adam couldn’t move in with Gansey. He had done so much to make sure that when he moved out, it would be on his own terms. Not Robert Parrish’s. Not Richard Gansey’s.

“Can I … can I press charges?”

“They told me you didn’t have insurance,” Gansey said. They’d also told him Adam would probably never hear out of his left ear again.

“You win,” Adam said finally. He rubbed a hand through his uneven hair. He sounded tired. “Take me to get my stuff.” Gansey had been about to start the Camaro, but he took his hand away from the ignition. “I didn’t win anything. Do you think this is how I wanted it?” “Yes,” Adam replied. He didn’t look at him. “Yes, I do.” Hurt and anger warred furiously inside Gansey. “Don’t be shitty.” Adam picked and picked at the uneven end where the paper bracelet sealed. “I’m telling you that you can say ‘I told you

“This is the way I talk. I’m sorry your father never taught you the meaning of repugnant. He was too busy smashing your head against the wall of your trailer while you apologized for being alive.” Both of them stopped breathing. Gansey knew he’d gone too far. It was too far, too late, too much. Adam shoved open the door. “Fuck you, Gansey. Fuck you,” he said, voice low and furious. Gansey closed his eyes.

In the end, he was nobody to Adam, he was nobody to Ronan. Adam spit his words back at him and Ronan squandered however many second chances he gave him. Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.

They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them.

Adam didn’t look at him when he said, finally, “It doesn’t matter how you say it. It’s what you wanted, in the end. All your things in one place, all under your roof. Everything you own right where you can see …”

Also, the very first thing she had done after they exchanged hellos was to use her Taser on him. This was followed by the ignominy of being tied up in the back of his own car.

A ritual death, then. A sacrifice, with his blood seeping down through the earth until it reached the sleeping ley line below.

Also, Neeve hadn’t tied him tightly enough.

“I’m only going to say this once, and then I’m going to be done with it,” she said. “But I think you’re awfully brave.”

Without lifting his head, Adam said, “I’d like to kiss you now, Blue, young or not.”

I’m not betraying him, Adam thought. We’re still doing this together. Only, when I come back, we’ll be equals.

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that. You’re meant to be a sacrifice. Being a sacrifice is quite a fine thing, with a lovely tradition behind it. Besides, you deserve it. It’s fair.”

But something about the atmosphere immediately took him back to that moment, the skateboard in his hand, the sad question gasped in Czerny’s dying sounds.

He missed Czerny. He had not let himself think it once in the past seven years. He had tried instead to convince himself of Czerny’s uselessness. Tried to remind himself of the practicality of the death instead. But instead, he remembered the sound Czerny made the first time he hit him.

Then he selected a fallen branch and crashed it down on her head with as much force as he could muster. He didn’t think it would be enough to kill her, because it was still green and flexible, but it certainly brought her to her knees.

Then he looked up and saw Adam Parrish.

“But killing is,” she replied. “I’ve never killed anyone. I give up my innocence if I kill you. That is an incredible sacrifice.”

Adam said, “I sacrifice myself.” Gansey’s cry was agonized. “Adam, no! No.” On his terms, or not at all. I will be your hands, Adam thought. I will be your eyes. There was a sound like a breaker being thrown. A crackle. Beneath them, the ground began to roll.

Whelk pointed the gun at Adam, and, without any ceremony, he pulled the trigger. Around them, the world went still. The leaves quivered and the water lapped slowly at the pool’s banks, but otherwise, the ground was quiet. Blue screamed.

“That is justice, Gansey. That’s the real thing. This place is all about being real. About being fair.”

“They said there’ve always been rumors of a king buried somewhere along this spirit road,” Ronan said. His eyes held Gansey’s. “They think he may be yours.”