the raven cycle

In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.

“I don’t have a brother, ma’am,” Adam replied. But Blue saw his eyes dart to Gansey.

“Lynch,” Gansey said. “We’re gone.” “That’s right,” Kavinsky called after Ronan. “Call your dog!” He said it like either Ronan or Gansey should be offended by it.

Boys like him didn’t die; they got bronzed and installed outside public libraries.

For so long, he'd wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam.

Gansey had never found children fun, including the child he had been.

In the suburbs, fireworks were bought and dreamt. Doors were locked and, later, busted open. At 300 Fox Way, Adam quietly turned eighteen.

Adam couldn’t remember how they had managed to fight so continuously over the summer. Gansey, his best friend, his stupid and kind and marvelous best friend.

The scent of Cabeswater, all trees after rain, drifted past Adam, and he realized that while he’d been looking at Ronan, Ronan had been looking at him.

Adam Parrish, gaunt and fair; Noah Czerny, smudgy and slouching; and Ronan Lynch, ferocious and dark.

Ronan could hear the night horrors coming, in love with his blood and his sadness. Their wings flapped in time with his heartbeat.

"Where did you say you found that bird again?" "In my head." Ronan’s laugh was a sharp jackal cry. "Dangerous place," commented Noah.

“I hate that prick,” Adam said. Ronan knew he ought to hate him, too.

In that formless place, he found himself intensely grateful for Ronan and Adam waiting outside for him, for Blue and her family, for Noah and for Malory. He was so grateful to have found all of them, finally.

"I died," he said. "I felt my heart stop. The hornets didn’t care. They were still stinging me, even though I was dead."

“and … this is supposed to be Greek. Isn’t that funny that it’s blank?" Derisively, Ronan said, “No. The ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for blue.” Everyone at the table looked at him. “What the hell, Ronan?” said Adam.

Adam seized Ronan’s neck, fingers hooked in his skin. Ronan could not kill him, no matter how much Orphan Girl begged. It was 𝘈𝘥𝘢𝘮.

He did not say 𝘐𝘧 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺, 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘰𝘯𝘦. He did not say 𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.

He had memorized the shape of Adam’s hands in particular: the way his thumb jutted awkwardly, boyishly; the roads of the prominent veins; the large knuckles that punctuated his long fingers. In dreams Ronan put them to his mouth.

Three-year-old Ronan had wanted a brother whose love was complete and uncomplicated.

“I thought I was hallucinating,” Adam said, next to the lockers, an announcement droning on over the hall speakers. “Ronan Lynch in the halls of Aglionby.”