“I never taught him to break his thumb.""That's Gansey for you. Only learns enough to be superficially competent.""Loser," Ronan agreed, and he was himself again.”

“Blue." It was Ronan's voice, for the first time, and everyone, even Helen, twisted their head towards him. His head was cocked in a way that Gansey recognized as dangerous. Something in his eyes was sharp as he stared at Blue. He asked, "Do you know Gansey?" ... Blue looked defensive under their stares. She said reluctantly. "Only his name." With his fingers loosely together, elbows on his knees, Ronan leaned forward across Adam to be closer to Blue. He could be unbelievably threatening. "And how is it," he asked," you came to know Gansey's name?”

“In the end, he was nobody to Adam, he was nobody to Ronan. Adam spit his words back at him and Ronan squandered however many second chances he gave him. Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.”

“Gansey's partying with his mother," Ronan said. He smelled like beer. "And Noah's fucking dead. But Parrish is here.”

“We have to be back in three hours," Ronan said. "I just fed Chainsaw but she'll need it again.""This," Gansey replied "is precisely why I didn't want to have a baby with you.”

“The night following the reading, Gansey woke up to a completely unfamiliar sound and fumbled for his glasses. It sounded a little like one of his roommates was being killed by a possum, or possibly the final moments of a fatal cat fight. He wasn’t certain of the specifics, but he was sure death was involved.Noah stood in the doorway to his room, his face pathetic and long-suffering. “Make it stop,” he said.Ronan’s room was sacred, and yet here Gansey was, twice in the same weak, pushing the door open. He found the lamp on and Ronan hunched on the bed, wearing only boxers. Six months before, Ronan had gotten the intricate black tattoo that covered most of his back and snaked up his neck, and now the monochromatic lines of it were stark in the claustrophobic lamplight, more real than anything else in the room. It was a peculiar tattoo, both vicious and lovely, and every time Gansey saw it, he saw something different in the pattern. Tonight, nestled in an inked glen of wicked, beautiful flowers, was a beak where before he’d seen a scythe.The ragged sound cut through the apartment again.“What fresh hell is this?” Gansey asked pleasantly. Ronan was wearing headphones as usual, so Gansey stretched forward far enough to tug them down around his neck. Music wailed faintly into the air.Ronan lifted his head. As he did, the wicked flowers on his back shifted and hid behind his sharp shoulder blades. In his lap was the half-formed raven, its head tilted back, beak agape.“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 ravel 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.”