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?

From Ronan's room, he heard Noah's laugh. He and Ronan were throwing various objects from the second-story window to the parking low below. There was a terrific crash. Ronan's voice rose, exasperated. "Not that one, Noah.

That night, like every other night since I’d met her, I curled Grace into my arms, listening to her parents’ muffled movements in the living room. They were like busy little brainless birds, fluttering in and out of their nest at all hours of the day or night, so involved in the pleasure of nest building that they hadn’t noticed that it had been empty for years.

Maura had decided sometime before Blue's birth that it was barbaric to order children about, and so Blue had grown up surrounded by imperative question marks.

Not all. Some of them he probably lectured to death.

Ronan merely invested a look with as much contempt as he could muster. A lady reached over the top of Noah to pat Matthew's head fondly before continuing down the aisle. She didn't seem to care that he was fifteen, which was all right, because he didn't, either. Both Ronan and Declan observed this interaction with the pleased expressions of parents watching their prodigy at work.

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