Blue thought about what Gansey had said, about being wealthy in love. And she thought about Adam, still collapsed on their sofa downstairs. If he had no one to wrap their arms around him when he was sad, could he be forgiven for letting his anger lead him?

Most people had an acquired kind of beauty, they became better looking the longer you knew them and the better you loved them, but Cole had unfairly skipped to the end of the game, all jaggedly handsome and Hollywood-looking. Not needing any love to get there.

There is something very shocking about seeing him standing dark and still on our doorstep. I lean the door a ways. The night's getting chilly. "You got away from the yard." "Is it still all right?" "It's all right. It's me and Gabe and Finn and Tommy Falk." "I've brought this." He holds up the bread, which is clearly a Palson's loaf, and it's still so fresh that I can smell the warmth of it. He must've come straight from there.

I smiled at the stacks, inhaling again. Hundreds of thousands of pages that had never been turned, waiting for me. The shelves were a warm, blond wood, piled with spines of every color. Staff picks were arranged on tables, glossy covers reflecting the light back at me. Behind the little cubby where the cashier sat, ignoring us, stairs covered with rich burgundy carpet led up to the worlds unknown. 'I could just live here,' I said.

World of words lost on the living / I take my place with the walking dead / Robbed of my voice I'm always giving / Thousands of words to this nameless dread.

Is that all?" she whispered. Gansey closed his eyes. "That's all there is.

I wasn’t sure which of us was being more selfish—her, for wanting something that no one could promise, or me, for not promising her something that was too painfully impossible to want.