The Raven Boys

Blue wakes to her mother and Neeve talking about their search for Blue’s father. She reads a passage from Gansey’s journal about Glendower granting the person who wakes him a wish, and she wonders what she’d wish for, not settling on anything. She then takes the journal to Persephone, one of the women living with her family, and asks about it. Persephone advises that Blue find who the journal belongs to, and before Blue can get too disappointed about not learning if Glendower is real, she adds, “Then I think you’d better find out if it’s true, don’t you?” (114).

Gansey goes to Adam’s house to pick him up for school the morning after Ronan’s disappearance, but Adam isn’t there. Fearful something’s happened to him, Gansey goes to school, where he’s upset to find Adam never showed up. In Latin, Gansey gets the impression Whelk is eavesdropping on his conversation with Ronan. It unsettles Gansey, but he can’t stop worrying about Adam, whose absence makes the quest for ley lines feel less like magic and more like “a strange cloth—too heavy to carry, too light to do any good at all” (121).

On the afternoon of Gansey’s appointment, Blue is helping her mother change lightbulbs when a strange man enters their house to get a reading. Blue’s mother, Persephone, and a third woman (Calla) perform a joint reading, and the results freak Blue’s mother out so much that she doesn’t finish the reading and orders the man to leave. He does, and the women worry about the unnamed thing they fear he’ll find, warning Blue that if she ever sees him again to “kick him in the nuts. Then run the other way” (132).

After school, Gansey goes back to Adam’s house. Adam tried to sneak out to help search for Ronan the other night, and his father hit him, bruising his face. Gansey wants Adam to come live at the apartment with him, Ronan, and Noah, but Adam refuses because he doesn’t want to get brought into Gansey’s new life when he gets his wish from Glendower. Attending Aglionby is tough enough, and Adam doesn’t want to start over at another rich-kid school because “rags to riches isn’t a story anyone wants to hear until after it’s done” (137).

Adam and Gansey argue about running away. Adam doesn’t have the money, and Gansey offers to cover for him until he can get on his feet. Though Adam tries to explain that this would mean he isn’t his own person, Gansey doesn’t understand, telling Adam not to throw his life away on waiting while his father abuses him. The boys go to their appointment with Blue’s family, passing Adam’s father in his pick-up truck. Gansey drives around him, but even so, he can feel the man’s stare following them, and “the weight of that gaze seemed like a more substantial promise of the future than anything a psychic might tell him” (142).

Gansey is late to his appointment, which makes Blue nervous until he arrives, and she recognizes him from the restaurant. Suddenly, she wishes he wasn’t there, and though she’s glad to see Adam, there’s something different about him. As Gansey, Adam, and Ronan traipse inside, Blue is overcome by the link the boys seem to share and also annoyed at how rich they appear because “they’d made her family dingy just by coming here” (148).

The women do three one-off readings, where each boy draws one card that they interpret. Adam pulls the two of swords, which means he’s avoiding a decision because it feels like more than he can give. Ronan refuses to draw a card, saying he wants them to tell him something no one else knows, to which Calla offers “a secret killed your father and you know what it was” (152). Ronan storms out, and Blue feels herself falling, as if she’s caught up in a web with these boys and can’t get free because she’s supposed to be there.

Gansey asks Blue to choose a card for him, and she picks the page of cups. Blue’s mother rejects it for Gansey because that card is linked to Blue’s energy, but when Gansey draws a card, it’s the page of cups. Again, Blue’s mother rejects it, and Gansey picks the death card, which bothers everyone but him. He asks about ley lines, and the women feign ignorance. Gansey and Adam leave, and Blue’s mother orders her never to see them again because there is something wrong and dangerous about them.

The following night, Gansey wakes to the wailing sound of Ronan feeding the baby raven. The boys discuss the reading and how it feels like there is something big at work around them. A hornet crawls along Gansey’s window, and he stares at it, not killing it despite being allergic to its sting. Ronan deals the killing blow, and Gansey remembers how he almost died from hornet stings as a kid. That day, he was granted a second chance, and “lately, the weight of needing to make it matter felt heavier” (171).

A few nights later, Blue wakes, consumed with thoughts about the boys and irritation that her mother forbade her to see them. Outside, she finds Neeve in the middle of a ritual, and a dark voice comes from her, asking Blue to come closer. Something rises from a pool of water nearby, and Blue destroys the pentagram housing the ritual, releasing Neeve from whatever thing had a hold of her. Neeve explains that the ritual got out of hand because Blue boosted its energy. The town is positioned atop a ley line. Supernatural forces are stronger there, and they feed off Blue’s energy because “everything that needs energy to stay alive craves it” (178).

Early one morning, Whelk raids Gansey’s school locker and goes through the notebooks of information about ley lines and Glendower, figuring out how Gansey has linked the two. Whelk copies the notes and resolves to find Glendower and wish for what he’s always wanted: “to control the ley line” (182).

Blue asks Calla why Neeve is there. Calla doesn’t know, but she and Blue plan to go through Neeve’s things. Blue receives flowers from Adam, which make her think of Gansey’s impending death and his inquiry about ley lines. Blue decides to give him the information he’s looking for, resolving that today “is the day I stop listening to the future and start living it instead” (189).