The Raven Boys

"I thought we were clear on what a closed door meant," Ronan said. He held a pair of tweezers in one hand.

"I thought we were clear that night was for sleeping."

Ronan shrugged. "Perhaps for you."

"Not tonight. Your pterodactyl woke me. Why is it making that sound?"

In response, Ronan dipped the tweezers into a plastic baggy on the blanket in front of him. Gansey wasn’t certain he wanted to know what the gray substance was in the tweezers’ grasp. As soon as the raven heard the rustle of the bag, it made the ghastly sound again — a rasping squeal that became a gurgle as it slurped down the offering. At once, it inspired both Gansey’s compassion and his gag reflex.

"Well, this is not going to do," he said. "You’re going to have to make it stop."

"She has to be fed," Ronan replied. The raven gargled down another bite. This time it sounded a lot like vacuuming potato salad. "It’s only every two hours for the first six weeks."

"Can’t you keep her downstairs?"

In reply, Ronan half-lifted the little bird toward him. "You tell me."

Gansey disliked having his kindness appealed to, especially when it had to war with his desire for sleep. There was, of course, no way that he would force the raven downstairs. It looked bite-sized and improbable. He wasn’t certain if it was extremely cute or appallingly ugly, and it bothered him that it managed to be both.

From behind him, Noah said, sounding pitiful, "I don’t like that thing in here. It reminds me of …"

He trailed off, as he often did, and Ronan pointed the tweezers at him. "Hey, man. Stay out of my room."

"Shut up," Gansey told both of them. "That includes you, bird."

"Chainsaw."

Noah withdrew, but Gansey remained. For several minutes, he watched the raven slurp down gray slime while Ronan cooed at her. He was not the Ronan that Gansey had grown accustomed to, but neither was he the Ronan that Gansey had first met. It was clear now that the instrument wailing from the headphones was the Irish pipes. Gansey couldn’t remember the last time Ronan had listened to Celtic music. Niall Lynch’s music. All at once, he, too, missed Ronan’s charismatic father. But more than that, he missed the Ronan that had existed when Niall Lynch had still been alive. This boy in front of him now, fragile bird in his hands, seemed like a compromise.

After a space, Gansey asked, "What did the psychic mean, Ronan? Earlier. About your father."

Ronan didn’t lift his head, but Gansey watched the muscles in his back tighten, stretched as if they were suddenly carrying weight. "That’s a very Declan question."

Gansey considered this. "No. No, I don’t think it is."

"She was just full of shit."

Gansey considered this, too. "No, I don’t think she was."

Ronan found his music player next to him on the bed and paused it. When he replied, his voice was pitchless and naked. "She’s one of those chicks who gets inside your head and f**ks around with parts. She said it because she knew it would cause problems."

"Like what?"

"Like you asking me questions like Declan would," Ronan said. He offered the raven another gray mass, but she just stared up at him, transfixed. "Making me think about things I don’t want to think about. Those sorts of problems. Among others. What’s going on with your face, by the way?"

Gansey rubbed his chin, rueful. His skin felt reluctantly stubbled. He knew he was being diverted, but he allowed it. "Is it growing?"

"Dude, you aren’t really going to do that beard thing, are you? I thought you were joking. You know that stopped being cool in the fourteenth century or whenever it was that Paul Bunyan lived." Ronan looked over his shoulder at him. He was sporting the five o’clock shadow that he was capable of growing at any time of the day. "Just stop. You look mangy."

"It’s irrelevant. It’s not growing. I’m doomed to be a man-child."

"If you keep saying things like ‘man-child,’ we’re done," Ronan said. "Hey, man. Don’t let it get you down. Once your balls drop, that beard’ll come in great. Like a f**king rug. You eat soup, it’ll filter out the potatoes. Terrier style. Do you have hair on your legs? I’ve never noticed."

Gansey didn’t dignify any of this with a response. With a sigh, he pushed off the wall and pointed at the raven. "I’m going back to bed. Keep that thing quiet. You so owe me, Lynch."

"Whatever," Ronan said.

Gansey retreated to his bed, though he didn’t lie down. He reached for his journal, but it wasn’t there; he’d left it at Nino’s the night of the fight. He thought about calling Malory, but he didn’t know what he wanted to ask. Something inside him felt like the night, hungry and wanting and black. He thought about the dark eyeholes of the skeletal knight on the Death card.

An insect was buzzing against the window, the sort of buzz-tap that came from an insect with some size to it. He thought about his EpiPen, far away in the glove box of the car, too far away to be a useful antidote if it was needed. The insect was probably a fly or a stink bug or yet another crane fly, but the longer he lay there, the more he considered the idea that it could be a wasp or a bee.

It probably wasn’t.

But he opened his eyes. Gansey climbed softly from the bed, bending to retrieve a shoe that lay on its side. Walking cautiously to the window, he searched for the sound of the insect. The shadow of the telescope was an elegant monster on the floor beside him.

Though the sound of buzzing had died away, it only took him a moment to find the insect on the window: a wasp, crawling up the narrow wooden frame of the window, swiveling back and forth. Gansey didn’t move. He watched it climb and pause, climb and pause. The streetlights outside made a faint shadow of its legs, its curved body, the fine, insubstantial point of the stinger.

Two narratives coexisted in his head. One was the real image: the wasp climbing up the wood, oblivious to his presence. The other was a false image, a possibility: the wasp whirring into the air, finding Gansey’s skin, dipping the stinger into him, Gansey’s allergy making it a deadly weapon.

Long ago, his skin had crawled with hornets, their wings beating even when his heart hadn’t.

His throat was tight and full.

"Gansey?"

Ronan’s voice was just behind him, the timbre of it strange and initially unrecognizable. Gansey didn’t turn around. The wasp had just twitched its wings, nearly lifting off.