Safe As Life

But the sensible part of Blue, which was usually the only part of her, thought that had more to do with Richard Campbell Gansey III having a nice mouth than with any blossoming romance.

Boys like him didn't die; they got bronzed and installed outside public libraries.

At the moment, that particular boy, Richard Campbell Gansey III, looked pretty unkillable. In the humid wind at the top of the wide green hill, an ardently yellow polo shirt flapped against his chest and a pair of khaki shorts slapped his gloriously tanned legs.

Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys.

When he opened his hand, the keys lay in his palm. Dream to reality. This was his third secret.

Gansey trusted him with all things, except for weapons. Never with weapons and never with this, not Gansey's hell-tinged '73 Camaro slicked with black stripes. In his waking hours, Ronan never got any farther than the passenger seat. When Gansey left town, he took the keys with him.

The second secret was perfect in its concealment. Ronan did not say it. Ronan did not think it. He never put lyrics to the second secret, the one he kept from himself.

Ronan was struck with how sure he was that they had come from his father's mind. He'd never been more sure of anything. The world gaped and stretched suddenly infinite. Ronan told him, 'I know where the money comes from.' 'Don't tell anyone,' his father said. This was the first secret.

Four point one. Anything less than a four wouldn't have broken it, only cracked it.

When Niall said Declan, it always sounded like he meant to say Declan.

She said Ronan emerged, the trees all grew flowers and the Henrietta ravens laughed.

He always said Ronan differently from other words. As if he had meant to say another word entirely - something like knife or poison or revenge - and then swapped it out for Ronan's name at the last moment.

And you, Ronan. When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood.

And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war.

The three brothers were nothing if not handsome copies of their father, although each flattered a different side of Niall. Declan had the same way of taking a room and shaking its hand. Matthew's curls were netted with Niall's charm and humor. And Ronan was everything that was left: molten eyes and a smile made for war.

This was already a lie, because if God truly had broken the mold for Niall, He'd made Himself a knockoff twenty years later to craft Ronan and his two brothers, Declan and Matthew.

When I was born, God broke the mold so hard the ground shook.