The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(3)

But the boys were not looking at the scenery. They stood in a close circle: Adam Parrish, gaunt and fair; Noah Czerny, smudgy and slouching; and Ronan Lynch, ferocious and dark. On Ronan’s tattooed shoulder perched his pet raven, Chainsaw. Although her grip was careful, there were finely drawn lines from her claws on either side of the strap of his black muscle T. They all eyed something Ronan held in his hands. Gansey cavalierly tossed the telescope into the buoyant field grass and joined them.

Adam allowed Blue into their circle as well, his eyes meeting hers for a moment. As always, his features intrigued Blue. They were not quite conventionally handsome, but they were interesting. He had the typical Henrietta prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes, but his version of them was more delicate. It made him seem a little alien. A little impenetrable.

I’m picking this one, Fate, she thought ferociously. Not Richard Gansey III. You can’t tell me what to do.

Adam’s hand glided over her bare elbow. The touch was a whisper in a language she didn’t speak very well.

“Open it up,” he ordered Ronan. His voice was dubious.

“Doubting Thomas,” Ronan sneered, but without much vitriol. The tiny model plane in his hand spanned the same breadth as his fingers. It was formed of pure white, featureless plastic, almost ludicrously lacking in detail: a plane-shaped thing. He opened the battery hatch on the bottom. It was empty.

“Well, it’s impossible, then,” Adam said. He picked off a grasshopper that had hurled itself onto his collar. Everyone in the group watched him do it. Since he’d performed a strange ritual bargain the month before, they’d been scrutinizing all of his movements. If Adam noticed this extra attention, he didn’t indicate it. “It won’t fly if it has no battery and no engine.”

Now Blue knew what this thing was. Ronan Lynch, keeper of secrets, fighter of men, devil of a boy, had told them all that he could take objects out of his dreams. Example A: Chainsaw. Gansey had been excited; he was the sort of boy who didn’t necessarily believe everything, but wanted to. But Adam, who had only gotten this far in life by questioning every truth presented to him, had wanted proof.

“‘It won’t fly if it has no battery and no engine,’” Ronan mimicked in a higher-pitched version of Adam’s faint Henrietta drawl. “Noah: the controller.”

Noah scuffled in the clumpy grass for the radio controller. Like the plane, it was white and shiny, all the edges rounded. His hands looked solid around it. Though he had been dead for quite a while and by all rights should appear more ghostly, he was always rather living-looking when standing on the ley line.

“What’s supposed to go inside the plane, if not a battery?” Gansey asked.

Ronan said, “I don’t know. In the dream it was little missiles, but I guess they didn’t come with.”

Blue snarled a few seed heads off the tall grass. “Here.”

“Good thinking, maggot.” Ronan stuffed them into the hatch. He reached for the controller, but Adam intercepted it and shook it by his ear.

“This doesn’t even weigh anything,” he said, dropping the controller into Blue’s palm.

It was very light, Blue thought. It had five tiny white buttons: four arranged in a cross shape, and one off by itself. To Blue, that fifth button was like Adam. Still working toward the same purpose as the other four. But no longer quite as close as the others.

“It will work,” Ronan said, taking the controller and handing the plane to Noah. “It worked in the dream, so it’ll work now. Hold it up.”

Still slouching, Noah lifted the tiny plane between thumb and forefinger, as if he were getting ready to launch a pencil. Something in Blue’s chest thrummed with excitement. It was impossible that Ronan had dreamt that little plane. But so many impossible things had happened already.

“Kerah,” Chainsaw said. This was her name for Ronan.

“Yes,” agreed Ronan. Then, to the others, he said imperiously, “Count it down.”

Adam made a face, but Gansey, Noah, and Blue obligingly chanted, “Five-four-three —”

On blast-off, Ronan pressed one of the buttons.

Soundlessly, the tiny plane darted from Noah’s hand and into the air.

It worked. It really worked.

Gansey laughed out loud as they all tipped their heads back to watch its ascent. Blue shielded her eyes to keep sight of the tiny white figure in the haze. It was so small and nimble that it looked like a real plane thousands of feet above the slope. With a frenzied cry, Chainsaw launched herself from Ronan’s shoulder to chase it. Ronan pitched the plane left and right, looping it around the crest, Chainsaw close behind. When the plane passed back overhead, he hit that fifth button. Seed heads cascaded from the open hatch, rolling off their shoulders. Blue clapped and reached her palm out to catch one.

“You incredible creature,” Gansey said. His delight was infectious and unconditional, broad as his grin. Adam tipped his head back to watch, something still and faraway around his eyes. Noah breathed whoa, his palm still lifted as if waiting for the plane to return to it. And Ronan stood there with his hands on the controller and his gaze on the sky, not smiling, but not frowning, either. His eyes were frighteningly alive, the curve of his mouth savage and pleased. It suddenly didn’t seem at all surprising that he should be able to pull things from his dreams.

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