The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2)(74)

“I haven’t,” Gloria Elgin replied, dazzled by Gansey’s Ganseyness. “We usually take Ben’s Cessna these days. But I would like to hear about it.”

When she turned to Adam, Gansey vanished into the crowd.

For a moment, Adam said nothing. He was not Gansey, he did not dazzle, he was a pretender with a flute of false champagne in his slender hand made from dust. He looked at Mrs. Elgin. She looked back at him through her eyelashes.

With a jolt, he realized that he intimidated her. Standing there in his impervious suit with its red-knotted tie, young and straight-shouldered and clean, he had pulled off whatever strange alchemy Gansey performed. For perhaps the first time in his life, someone was looking at him and seeing power.

He tried to conjure up the magic he’d already seen Gansey do this evening. His mind swam with the noise of this glittering company, the shimmer in the bottom of his champagne glass, the knowledge that this was the future, if he speared it.

he was in a forest, whispers pursued him

Not here

He said, “Can I refill your drink first?”

Mrs. Elgin’s face melted with pleasure as she offered up her glass.

Don’t you know? Adam wondered. He, at least, could still smell diesel fuel on his hands. Don’t you know what I am?

But this flock of peacocks was too busy fooling to notice they were being fooled.

Adam couldn’t remember why he was here. He was dissolving in a hallucination of ghostly guests alongside the real ones.

Because this is Aglionby, he thought, desperately trying to ground himself. This is what happens to Aglionby in the real world. This is how you use that education you’ve worked so hard for. This is how you get out.

Suddenly, an electric buzz groaned through the room. The lights dipped and crackled. The clinking of glasses paused as the lamps swelled once more.

And then the lights went out entirely.

Was this real?

Not now

The sun had set, and the interior of the house was close and dark brown around the guests. The windows were unfocused squares of gray street light. Scents seemed strangely pronounced: lilac and carpet cleaner, cinnamon and mold. The room was full of the wordless shuffle of a stockyard.

And in that brief pause in the conversation, in that shocked silence filled with neither the hum of voices nor of electronics, a high song floated through the dark. A precise, archaic melody, sung by a chorus of women’s voices. Pure and thin, spreading from a thread of sound to a river of one. It took only a moment for Adam to realize that the words were not in English: Rex Corvus, parate Regis Corvi.

Adam felt charged from his feet to his fingertips.

Somewhere in this darkness, Gansey was hearing this, too. Adam could sense him hearing it. These voices were true in a way that nothing else had been that day. Adam remembered all at once what it felt like to feel, to be real, to be Adam, instead of my friend, Adam Parrish, give him your card. He couldn’t believe what a huge difference there was between those two things.

The lights surged back on. Conversation collapsed back into place.

Some part of Adam was still lodged back there in the dark.

“Was that Spanish?” Gloria Elgin asked, her hand pressed to her throat. Adam could see the line of her makeup on her jaw.

“Latin,” Adam said, trying to find Gansey’s face in the crowd. His pulse still galloped. “It was Latin.”

The Raven King, make way for the Raven King.

“What a funny thing,” said Gloria Elgin.

Owen Glendower was the Raven King. There were so many stories of Glendower knowing the language of birds. So many stories of ravens whispering secrets to him.

“Probably a brownout,” Adam replied. The business cards in his pocket felt irrelevant. He was still searching for the only pair of eyes in the room that mattered. Where was Gansey? “Everyone’s air-conditioning on at the same time.”

“That’s probably true,” Gloria Elgin said, comforted.

The conversation around them muttered, Peabody kids have a funny sense of humor! I’ll have another of those shrimp things. What were you saying? What did you do when the marble was cracked?

There, across the room, was Gansey. His gaze seized Adam’s and held it. Even though the lights were back on, the voices long dissipated, Adam could still sense the power of the newly wakened ley line surging beneath him, all the way back to Henrietta. This glittering host had already moved on, but not Adam. Not Gansey. They were the only two living things in this room.

Do you see? Adam felt like shouting. This is why I made the sacrifice.

This was how he would find Glendower.





The inside of the old Camaro smelled like asphalt and desire, gasoline and dreams. Ronan sat behind the wheel, eyes on the midnight street. Streetlights fenced the asphalt, slashing reflections over the atomic orange hood. On either side of the road, the barren lots of car dealerships sprawled, eerie and silent.

He was as hungry as the night.

The color of the dash turned green-yellow-red under the traffic light above. In the cracked passenger-side mirror, Noah appeared anxious. He checked over his shoulder for cops. Ronan checked his teeth.

“Nice to see you, Noah,” he said. He could feel every pump of his heart, every surge through his veins. “Been a while.”

I did this, Ronan thought. The keys trembled against one another in the ignition. I made this happen.