I didn’t tell her the first part, which was this: Once upon a time, before being a new wolf tied up in the back of a Tahoe, before Club Josephine, before NARKOTIKA, there was a boy named Cole St. Clair, and he could do anything. And the weight of that possibility was so unbearable that he crushed himself before it had a chance to.
Jesse Dittley kicked in the door. It was a slow-motion kick because his leg was so long – there was a considerable lag between when he began to swing his leg and when his foot actually hit the door. Blue wondered what that was called. A leg roundhouse, or something.
Is that why you look like hell?” “Thanks, Parrish. I like your face, too.
Gansey clucked at his bedraggled reflection in the dark-framed mirror hanging in the front hallway. Chainsaw eyed herself briefly before hiding on the other side of Ronan’s neck; Adam did the same, but without the hiding-in-Ronan’s-neck bit. Even Blue looked less fanciful that usual, the lighting rendering her lampshade dress and spiky hair as a melancholy Pierrot.
He was awake; probably he had had the same dream as she. They had the same starry stuff in their veins, after all.
Ronan sounded furious, which told Declan little about what he was really feeling. Every emotion that wasn’t happiness in Ronan usually presented itself as anger.
This was a beautiful, old wood, all massive oak and ash trees finding footing among great slabs of cracked stone. Ferns sprang from rocks and verdant moss grew up the sides of the tree trunks. The air itself was scented with green and growing and water. The light was golden through the leaves. Everything was alive, alive.
It was peaceful, not dead. Like putting down a weight he hadn’t realized he was carrying, the weight of noise, the weight of everyone else.
Blue radiated psychic energy for others, but touch was where she gained hers back. She was always hugging her mother or holding Noah’s hand or linking her elbow in Adam’s or resting her boots on Ronan’s legs as they sat on the sofa. Touching Gansey’s neck just between his hair and his collar. This.
Gansey always thought that, after dark, it felt like anything could happen.
Remember it’s me. Please.
The Gray Man seemed to be considering. Usually everyone else looked frightened by this point of this conversation, but it was possible the Gray Man didn’t have emotions.
We wolves did many things: change, hide, sing underneath a pale, lonely moon – but we never disappeared entirely. Humans disappeared. Humans made monsters out of us.
Waitressing required patience, a fixed and convincing smile, and the ability to continuously turn the other cheek while keeping diet sodas topped up.
A very faraway part of her realized that she was in trouble.
She pushed up from the ground and ran. “What are you doing?” Pete shouted. “Getting that horse back!” Pete leaped to his feet, stepping hard into his boot to put it back on, as Beatriz had nearly pulled it off in her hurry to drag him free of the stampede’s path. Then he, too, broke into a run – only he ran for the Mercury. This was the moment their love story began.
Dying and dead are different words.
Sam made me uncomfortable. I had a couple of different personas that pretty much worked across the board for everyone I had ever met, but none of them seemed right for him. He was painfully, annoyingly earnest, and how was I supposed to respond to that?
Worst of all, in Blue’s opinion, was that there was something about his antagonism that made her want to court his favor, to earn his approval. The approval of someone like him, who clearly cared for no one, seemed like it would be worth more.
And thus they built a stage on which to showcase their conjuring – and also to refine it.