The Raven King (The Raven Cycle, Book 4)

Inside, they pretended they would dream, but they did not. They sprawled on the living room sofa and Adam studied the tattoo that covered Ronan’s back: all the sharp edges that hooked wondrously and fearfully into each other.

“Unguibus et rostro,” Adam said.

Ronan put Adam’s fingers to his mouth.

He was never sleeping again.

Back at the Barns, Ronan thought about all the things he liked and didn’t like about Cabeswater, and what he would do differently if he was to manifest it now. What would give it more protection against a threat in the future, what would make it better able to connect with other places like Cabeswater on the line, what would make it a truer reflection of himself.

Then, holding these things in his head, he climbed up on to the roof and gazed up at the sky.

Then he closed his eyes and he began to dream

Everything in the forest was interesting to her, and interesting meant tasting it. Adam said she was a lot like Ronan. Ronan was going to choose to take that as a compliment.

“Opal,” he snapped, and she spat out a mouthful of mushroom. “Stop dicking around!”

The girl galloped to catch up with him, but she didn’t pause when she reached him. She preferred to form a lopsided perimeter of frantic activity around his person. Anything else might give the appearance of willing obedience, and she would do a lot to avoid that.

Up ahead, Chainsaw shouted, “Kerah!”

She kept hollering until Ronan had caught up with her. Sure enough, she had found something out of place

“Do you think it ever breaks down?” Gansey shouted over the sound of the not-engine.

Henry began to laugh.

“This is going to be a great trip,” he said.

Depending on where you began the story, it was about this place: the long stretch of mountain that straddled a particularly potent segment of the ley line. Months before, it had been Cabeswater, populated by dreams, blooming with magic. Now it was merely an ordinary Virginia forest, green thorns and soft sycamores and oaks and pine trees, everything slender from the effort of growing through rock.

Ronan guessed it was pretty enough, but it was no Cabeswater.

It was pleasantly warm. Insects made themselves cosy in the teens’ shirts and around their ankles. Gansey had the sense of doing this before, but he couldn’t tell if he had or not. He knew now that the feeling of time-slipping that he’d lived with for so long was not a product of his first death, but rather his second. A by-product of the bits and bobs Cabeswater had assembled to give him life again. Humans were not meant to experience all times at once, but Gansey had to do it anyway.

Blue reached over to take his hand as they walked, and they swung this knot of their fingers between them merrily. They were free, free, free. School was over and summer stretched before them. Gansey had bid for a gap year and won; Henry had already planned on one. It was all convenient, as Blue had spent months planning how to cheaply hike across the country post-graduation, destination: life. It was better with company. It was better with three. Three, Persephone had always said, was the strongest number.

He felt a sudden urge to save all these other Adams hidden in plain view, though he didn’t know if they would listen to him. It struck him as a Gansey or a Blue impulse, and as he held that tiny, heroic spark in his mind, he realized that it was only because he believed that he had saved himself that he could imagine saving someone else

The last time he had raised a hand to his son, he’d had to pull a bloody thorn out of it, and Adam could see the disbelief of that moment still registering in him. Adam was other. Even without Cabeswater’s force, he could feel it glimmering coolly in his eyes, and he did nothing to disguise it. Magician.

“It was ugly way before then, Dad,” Adam replied. “Do you know I can’t hear out of this ear? You were talking over me in the courtroom when I said it before.”

His father made a scornful noise, but Adam interrupted him. “Gansey took me to the hospital. That should’ve been you, Dad. I mean, it shouldn’t have happened at all, but if it had really been an accident, it should have been you in the room with me.”

Even as he said the words that he’d wanted to say, he couldn’t believe that he was saying them. Had he ever talked back to his father and been certain he was right? And been able to look him right in the eye the entire time? He couldn’t quite believe that he was not afraid: His father was not frightening unless you were already afraid.

His father blustered and put his hands in his pockets.

“I’m deaf in this ear, Dad, and that was you.”

He could tell from their faces that the answer to this was not likely to be yes anytime soon, but that was all right. He hadn’t come with any expectations, so he was not disappointed.

“I reckon I don’t know,” his father replied finally. “You’ve grown up into someone I don’t like very much, and I’m not afraid to say it.”

“That’s fair,” Adam said. He didn’t much care for his father, either. Gansey would’ve said I appreciate your honesty, and Adam borrowed from that memory of polite power. “I appreciate your honesty.”

His father’s face indicated that Adam had just illustrated his point perfectly.

His mother spoke up. “I’d like you to call. I’d like to know what you’re doing.”

She lifted her head, and the light through the window made a perfect square of light on her glasses. And just like that, Adam’s thoughts flashed along time, his logic following the same channels his psychic sense used. He could see himself knocking, her standing on the other side of the door, not answering. He could see himself knocking, her standing around the back of the trailer, holding her breath until he was gone. He could even see himself calling, and the phone ringing as she held it in her hands. But he could also see her opening the college brochure. He could see her clipping his name out of a newspaper. Putting a photo of him in his smart jacket and nice trousers and easy smile on the fridge.

At some point she had released him, and she didn’t want him back. She just wanted to see what happened.

But that was all right, too. It was something. He could do that. In fact, that was probably all he could do.

He knocked on the cabinet beside him, once, thoughtful, and then he took out the BMW keys. “I’ll do that,” he said.