The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(46)

Ronan looked at him.

That look, Blue thought. Ronan Lynch would do anything for Gansey.

I probably would, too, she thought. It was impossible for her to understand how he managed to pull off such an effect in that polo shirt.

“Whatever,” Ronan said. Which meant he’d do it.

Gansey looked at Blue. “Happy, Jane?”

Blue said, “Whatever.”

Which meant she was.



Maura and Persephone were working, but Blue managed to corner Calla in the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room. If she couldn’t have all three of them, Calla was the one she wanted anyway. Calla was as traditionally clairvoyant as the other two, but she had an additional, strange gift: psychometry. When she touched an object, she could often sense where it had come from, what the owner had been thinking when he or she used it, and where it might end up. As they seemed to be dealing with things that were both people and objects at the same time, Calla’s talent seemed apropos.

Standing in the doorway with Ronan and Gansey, Blue said, “We need your advice.”

“I’m sure you do,” replied Calla, in not the warmest of ways. She had one of those low, smoky voices that always seemed more appropriate to a black-and-white movie. “Ask your question.”

Politely, Gansey asked, “Are you sure you can think that way?”

“If you’re doubting me,” Calla snapped, “I don’t see why you’re here.”

In Gansey’s defense, Calla was upside down. She hung magnificently from the ceiling of the Phone/Sewing/Cat Room; the only thing preventing her from crashing to the floor was a deep purple swath of silk wrapped around one of her thighs.

Gansey averted his eyes. He whispered in Blue’s ear, “Is this a ritual?”

There was something a bit magical about it, Blue supposed. Although the green gingham-wallpapered room was full of a multitude of odds and ends to lure the attention, it was difficult to look away from Calla’s slowly spinning form. It seemed impossible the length of silk would hold her weight. Currently, she was rotated toward the corner, her back to them. Her tunic hung down, revealing a lot of dark brown skin, a pink bra strap, and four tiny tattooed coyotes running along her spine.

Blue, holding the puzzle box in her hands, whispered back: “It’s aerial yoga.” Louder, she said, “Calla, it’s about Ronan.”

Calla readjusted, wrapping the silk around her other thigh instead. “Which one’s he again? The pretty one?”

Blue and Gansey exchanged a look. Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?

Calla continued turning, almost imperceptibly. It was becoming more obvious as she swiveled that she was not the thinnest woman on the planet, but that she had stomach muscles like whoa. “The Coca-Cola shirt?”

She meant Adam. He’d worn a red Coca-Cola shirt to the first reading and was now and forevermore identified by it.

Ronan said, his voice a low growl, “The snake.”

Calla’s rotation finished just as he said it. They looked at each other for a long moment, him right side up, her upside down. Chainsaw, on Ronan’s shoulder, twisted her head to get a better look. There was nothing particularly sympathetic about Ronan just then, handsome mouth drawing a cruel line, eerie tattoo creeping out the collar of his black T-shirt, raven pressed against the side of his shaved head. It was hard to remember the Ronan who’d pressed that tiny mouse to his cheek back at the Barns.

Upside down, Calla was trying to look dismissive, but it was clear that one of her arched eyebrows was terribly interested.

“I see,” she replied finally. “What sort of advice do you need, Snake?”

“My dreams,” Ronan replied.

Now Calla’s eyebrows matched her dismissive mouth. She allowed herself to circle away from them again. “Persephone’s the one you’ll want for dream interpretation. Have a nice life.”

“They’ll interest you,” Ronan said.

Calla just cackled and stretched one of her legs out.

Blue made an irritated noise. Taking two strides across the room, she pressed the puzzle box to Calla’s bare cheek.

Calla stopped spinning.

Slowly, she righted herself. The gesture was as elegant as a ballet move, a swan dancer unfolding. She said, “Why didn’t you say so?”

Ronan said, “I did.”

Her plum lips pursed. “Something you should know about me, Snake. I don’t believe anyone.”

Chainsaw hissed. Ronan said, “Something you should know about me. I never lie.”



Calla continued performing aerial yoga for the entirety of the conversation.

Sometimes she was right side up, her legs curved beneath her. “All of these things are still a part of you. To me, they feel precisely the same as you feel. Well, mostly. They’re like your nail clippings. So they all share the same life as you. The same soul. You’re the same entity.”

Ronan wanted to protest this — if Chainsaw fell off a table, he didn’t feel her pain — but he wouldn’t feel the pain of one of his nail clippings, either.

“So when you die, they’ll stop.”

“Stop? Not die themselves?” Gansey asked.

Calla turned herself upside down, her knees bent and her feet pressed to each other. It made her a cunning spider. “When you die, your computer doesn’t die, too. They never really lived like you’re thinking of life. It’s not a soul that’s animating them. Take away the dreamer and — they’re a computer waiting for input.”