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.

But it looked as if they hadn’t got to that place yet: They had future adventures waiting for them on the ley line.

It was a thrilling and terrifying prospect.

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.

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.

“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.”

Adam was not Robert, but he could have been, and he forgave that past Adam for being afraid of the possibility.

The psychic’s daughter’s sadness burst through the forest, and Cabeswater accepted that, too, and put it into the life it was building.

Another tree fell, and another, and Cabeswater kept returning again and again to the humans who had made the request. It had to remember what they felt like. It had to remember to make itself small enough.

As the forest diminished, the Greywaren’s despair and wonder surged through Cabeswater. The trees sang soothingly back to him, a song of possibility and power and dreams, and then Cabeswater collected his wonder and put it into the life it was building.

And finally, the magician’s wistful regret twisted through what remained of the trees. Without this, what was he? Simply human, human, human. Cabeswater pressed leaves against his cheek one last time, and then they took that humanity for the life it was building.

It was nearly human-shaped. It would fit well enough. Nothing was ever perfect.

Make way for the Raven King.

The last tree fell, and the forest was gone, and everything was absolutely silent.

Blue touched Gansey’s face. She whispered, “Wake up.”

Ronan crouched beside him, black still smeared on his face under his nose and around his ears. His dreamt firefly rested on Gansey’s heart. “Wake up, you bastard,” he said. “You fucker. I can’t believe that you would …”

And he began to cry.

Noah
crouched over Gansey’s body. He said, for the last time, “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.”

Gansey died.

“Goodbye,” Noah said. “Don’t throw it away.”

He quietly slid from time.