Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven King

Praise for

Best Book to Curl Up With

Glamour

If you are a fan of Twilight,
then you will love Shiver

Waterstones Books Quarterly

A magnificent and haunting love story

Youngscot.org

Literary methadone all-consuming

Sunday Telegraph

This bittersweet tale had the publishing world buzzing

Glamour

Full of deliciously illicit, star-crossed love

Financial Times

Also by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Boys

The Dream Thieves

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

The Scorpio Races

Shiver

Linger

Forever

Sinner

Lament: The Faerie Queens Deception

Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie

For Sarah, who gallantly took the Seat Perilous

To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE,
A SWIMMERS DREAM

These signs have markd me extraordinary;
and all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,
HENRY IV

Darling, the composer has stepped into fire.

ANNE SEXTON,
THE KISS

Contents

R ichard Gansey III had forgotten how many times he had been told he was destined for greatness.

He was bred for it; nobility and purpose coded in both sides of his pedigree. His mothers father had been a diplomat, an architect of fortunes; his fathers father had been an architect, a diplomat of styles. His mothers mother had tutored the children of European princesses. His fathers mother had built a girls school with her own inheritance. The Ganseys were courtiers and kings, and when there was no castle to invite them, they built one.

He was a king.

Once upon a time, the youngest Gansey had been stung to death by hornets. In all things, he had been given every advantage, and mortality was no different. A voice had whispered in his ear: You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.

Hed died, but failed to stay dead.

He was a king.

His mother, royalty herself, tossed her hat into the Virginia congressional ring, and unsurprisingly shed ascended elegantly to the top of the polls. Onward and upward. Had there ever been any doubt? Yes, actually, always, ever, because the Ganseys did not demand favours. Often they didnt even ask. They did unto others and silently hoped others would rise to do it unto them.

Doubt all a Gansey did was doubt. A Gansey reached bravely into the night-blind water, fate uncertain until the hilt of a sword pressed into a hopeful palm.

Except only a few months before, this Gansey had reached into the dark uncertainty of the future, stretching for the promise of a sword, and had instead pulled out a mirror.

Justice in an inside-out way, it felt fair.

It was April 25, St. Marks Eve. Years before, Gansey had read The Grand Mystery: Ley Lines of the World by Roger Malory. In it, Malory explained ponderously that a St. Marks Eve vigil on the ley line would reveal the spirits of those who were to die within the next year. By this point, Gansey had seen all sorts of wonders performed near or on the ley lines a girl who could read a book in full dark so long as she was on the line, an old woman who could lift a crate of fruit with only her mind, a trio of dusky-skinned triplets born on the line who cried tears of blood and bled salt water but none of it had involved him. Required him. Explained him.

He didnt know why hed been saved.

He needed to know why hed been saved.

So he held a nightlong vigil on the ley line that had become his maze, shivering alone in the parking lot of the Holy Redeemer. He saw nothing, heard nothing. The following morning he crouched beside his Camaro, tired to the point of nonsense, and played back the nights audio.

On the recording, his own voice whispered, Gansey. A pause. Thats all there is.

Finally, it was happening. He was no longer merely an observer in this world; he was a participant.

Even then, a small part of Gansey suspected what hearing his own name really meant. He knew it, probably, by the time his friends came to his cars rescue an hour later. He knew it, probably, when the psychics at 300 Fox Way read a tarot card for him. He knew it, probably, when he retold the entire story to Roger Malory in person.

Gansey knew whose voices whispered along the ley line on St. Marks Eve. But he had spent several years chaining his fears and wasnt ready to unhook their leashes just yet.

It wasnt until one of the psychics at 300 Fox Way died, until death became a real thing once more, that Gansey couldnt deny the truth any longer.

The hounds of the Aglionby Hunt Club howled it that fall: away, away, away.

He was a king.

This was the year he was going to die.

D epending on where you began the story, it was a story about the women of 300 Fox Way.

Stories stretch in all ways. Once upon a time, there was a girl who was very good at playing with time. Step sideways: Once upon a time, there was a daughter of a girl who was very good at playing with time. Now skip back: Once upon a time, there was a kings daughter who was very good at playing with time.

Beginnings and endings as far as the eye could see.

With the notable exception of Blue Sargent, all of the women at 300 Fox Way were psychic. This might have suggested that the houses occupants had much in common, but practically, they had as much in common as a group of musicians, or doctors, or morticians. Psychic was not so much a personality type as a skill set. A belief system. A general agreement that time, like a story, was not a line; it was an ocean. If you couldnt find the precise moment you were looking for, it was possible you hadnt swum far enough. It was possible that you simply werent a good enough swimmer yet. It was also possible, the women grudgingly agreed, that some moments were hidden far enough in time that they really should be left to deep-sea creatures. Like those anglerfish with all the teeth bits and the lanterns hanging off their faces. Or like Persephone Poldma. She was dead now, though, so perhaps she was a poor example.

It was a Monday when the still-living women of 300 Fox Way decided to finally assess Richard Ganseys impending doom, the disintegration of their lives as they knew them, and what those two things had to do with each other, if anything. Also, Jimi had done a chakra cleansing in exchange for a nice bottle of hot, peaty whiskey and was jonesing to finish it with company.

Calla stepped into the biting October day to turn the sign beside the letter box to read CLOSED COME BACK SOON! Inside, Jimi, a big believer in herb magick, brought out several small pillows stuffed with mugwort (to enhance the projection of the soul into other planes) and set rosemary to burn over charcoal (for memory and clairvoyance, which are the same thing in two different directions). Orla shook a smouldering bundle of sage over the tarot decks. Maura filled a black-glass scrying bowl. Gwenllian sang a gleeful, nasty little song as she lit a circle of candles and let the blinds down. Calla returned to the reading room with three statues cradled in the crook of her arm.