the

RAVEN
KING
Book IV of
the R aven Cycle

M aggie Stief vater

S c h o l a s t i c P r e ss

N e w Yo r k

For Sarah,
who gallantly took the Seat Perilous

Copyright 2016 by Maggie Stiefvater

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
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are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living
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coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-0-545-42498-1
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

16 17 18 19 20

Printed in the U.S.A. 23

First edition, May 2016
Book design by
Christopher Stengel

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 smoldering 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.
It smells like a goddamn Italian restaurant in here, she told
Jimi, who did not pause in her humming as she fanned the smoke
and wiggled her large bottom. Calla placed the ferocious statue
of Oya by her own chair and the dancing statue of Oshun next to
Mauras. She gripped the third statue: Yemaya, a watery Yoruban
goddess who had always stood beside Persephones place when
she wasnt standing, on Callas bedroom dresser. Maura, I dont
know where to put Yemaya.

Maura pointed to Gwenllian, who pointed back. You said

you didnt want to do this with Adam, so it goes by her.
I never said that, Calla said. I said he was too close to
all this.
The fact of the matter was that they were all too close to the
situation. Theyd been too close to the situation for months.
They were so close to the situation that it was difficult to tell
whether or not they were the situation.
Orla stopped chomping her gum for a moment long enough
to ask, Are we ready?
MmmmhmmmhmmmmissBluethoughmmmmhmmmm,
offered Jimi, still humming and swaying.
It was true that Blues absence was notable. As a powerful
psychic amplifier, she wouldve been useful in a case like this, but
theyd agreed in whispers the night before that it was cruel to
discuss Ganseys fate in front of her any more than was strictly
necessary. Theyd make do with Gwenllian, even though she was
half as powerful and twice as difficult.
Well tell her the upshot later, Maura said. I think I had
better get Artemus out of the pantry.
Artemus: Mauras ex-lover, Blues biological father, Glendowers
adviser, 300 Fox Ways closet dweller. He had been retrieved
from a magical cave just a little over a week before and in that
time had managed to contribute absolutely nothing to their emotional or intellectual resources. Calla found him spineless (she
was not wrong). Maura thought him misunderstood (she was
not wrong). Jimi reckoned he had the longest nose of any man
shed ever seen (she was not wrong). Orla didnt believe barricading oneself in a supply closet was a sufficient protection against
6

a psychic who hated you (she was not wrong). Gwenllian was, in
fact, the psychic who hated him (she was not wrong).
It took Maura quite a bit of doing to persuade him to leave
the pantry, and even after hed joined them at the table, he did
not look at all like he belonged. Some of that was because he was
a man, and some of it was because he was much taller than everyone else. But most of it was because he had dark, permanently
worried eyes that indicated he had seen the world and it was too
much for him. That earnest fear was entirely at odds with the
varying degrees of self-confidence carried by the psychics in
the room.
Maura and Calla had known him before Blue had been born
and both were thinking that Artemus was ever so much less than
he had been then. Well, Maura thought ever so much less. Calla
merely thought less, as she hadnt had a very high opinion of him
to begin with. But then, lanky men who appeared out of mystical
groves had never been her type.
Jimi poured the whiskey.
Orla closed the doors to the reading room.
The women sat.
What a cluster, Calla said, by way of opening (she was not
wrong).
He cant be saved, can he? Jimi asked. She meant Gansey.
She was a little misty-eyed. It was not that she was intensely fond
of Gansey, but she was a very sentimental person, and the idea of
any young man being cut down in his youth troubled her.
Mm, said Maura.
The women all took a drink. Artemus did not. He shot a
nervous look at Gwenllian. Gwenllian, always imposing with
7

a nest of towering hair full of pencils and flowers, glared back at

him. The heat in her expression should have ignited any alcohol
remaining in her shot glass.
Maura asked, Do we need to stop it, then?
Orla, the youngest and loudest in the room, laughed in a
youthful and loud way. How exactly would you stop him?
I said it, not him, Maura replied, rather snottily. I would
not pretend to imagine I have any power to stop that boy from
searching Virginia for his own grave. But the others.
Calla put her glass down with force. Oh, I could stop him.
But thats not the point. Its everything already in place.
(Everything already in place: the retired hit man currently
sleeping with Maura; his supernatural-obsessed ex-boss currently sleeping in Boston; the creepy entity buried in rocks
beneath the ley line; the unfamiliar creatures crawling out of a
cave mouth behind an abandoned farmhouse; the ley lines growing power; the magical sentient forest on the ley line; one boys
bargain with the magical forest; one boys ability to dream things
to life; one dead boy who refused to be laid to rest; one girl who
supernaturally amplified 90 percent of the aforementioned list.)
The women took another drink.
Should they keep going to that crazy forest? Orla asked.
She did not care for Cabeswater. She had gone with the group
once before and had come close enough to the forest to...feel
it. Her sort of clairvoyance was best over telephone lines or email;
faces only got in the way of the truth. Cabeswater had no face,
and the ley line was basically the worlds best telephone line. She
had been able to feel it asking her for things. She couldnt tell
what they were, exactly. And she didnt necessarily think they
8

were bad things. She could just sense the enormity of its requests,
the weight of its promises. Life-changing. Orla was just fine with
her life, thanks very much, so shed tipped her hat and gotten out
of there.
The forest is fine, Artemus said.
All of the women looked at him.
Describe fine, Maura said.
Cabeswater loves them. Artemus folded his enormous
hands in his lap and pointed his enormous nose at them. His
gaze kept jerking back to Gwenllian, as if he feared she might
leap at him. Gwenllian meaningfully snuffed one of the candles
with her shot glass; the reading room got one tiny fire darker.
Care to elaborate? Calla asked.
Artemus did not.
Maura said, Well take that opinion under advisement.
The women took a drink.
Is any of us in this room going to die? Jimi asked. Did
anyone else we know appear at the church watch?
Doesnt apply to any of us, Maura said. The church watch
generally only predicted the deaths of those who had been born
in the town or directly on the spirit road (or, in Ganseys case,
reborn), and everyone currently at the table was an import.
Applies to Blue, though, Orla pointed out.
Maura aggressively stacked and restacked her cards. But its
not a guarantee of safety. There are fates worse than death.
Lets shuffle, then, said Jimi.
Each woman held her tarot deck to her heart, shuffled, and
then selected a single card at random. They placed the cards
faceup on the table.
9

Tarot is a very personal thing, and as such, the art on each

deck reflected the woman who owned it. Mauras was all dark
lines and simple colors, at once perfunctory and childlike. Callas
was lush and oversaturated, the cards overflowing with detail.
Every card in Orlas deck featured a couple kissing or making
love, whether or not the cards meaning was about kissing or
making love. Gwenllian had fashioned her own by scratching
dark, frantic symbols on a deck of ordinary playing cards. Jimi
stuck by the Sacred Cats and Holy Women deck that shed found
in a thrift store in 1992.
All of the women had turned over five different versions of
the Tower. Callas version of the Tower perhaps best depicted the
cards meaning: A castle labeled stability was in the process of
being struck by lightning, burning down, and being attacked by
what looked like garter snakes. A woman in a window was experiencing the full effects of the lightning bolt. At the top of the
tower, a man had been thrown from the rampartsor possibly
he had jumped. In any case, he was on fire as well, and a snake
flew after him.
So were all going to die unless we do something,
Calla said.
Gwenllian sang, Owynus dei gratia Princeps Waliae, ha la la,
Princeps Waliae, ha la la
With a whimper, Artemus made as if to stand. Maura placed
a steadying hand on his.
Were all going to die, Maura said. At some point. Lets
not panic.
Callas eyes were on Artemus. Only one of us is
panicking.
10

Jimi passed around the whiskey bottle. Time to find some

solutions, darlings. How are we looking for them?
All of the women looked at the dark scrying bowl. There was
nothing inherently remarkable about it: it was an $11 glass display bowl from one of those stores full of cat food, mulch, and
discount electronics. The cran-grape juice that filled it had no
mystical powers. But still, there was something ominous about it,
about how the fluid seemed a little restless. It reflected only the
dark ceiling, but it looked like it wanted to show more. The scrying bowl contemplated possibilities, not all of them good.
(One of the possibilities: using the reflection to separate
your soul from your body and ending up dead.)
Although Maura was the one who had brought the bowl out,
she pushed it away now.
Lets do a whole-life reading, Orla said. She popped
her gum.
Ugh, no, Calla said.
For all of us? Maura asked, as if Calla hadnt protested.
Our life as a group?
Orla waved an arm to indicate all of the decks; her enormous
wooden bangles clicked against each other with satisfaction.
I like it, Maura said. Calla and Jimi sighed.
Ordinarily, a reading used only a portion of the seventyeight cards in a deck. Three, or ten. Maybe one or two more, if
clarification was needed. Each cards position asked a question:
What is the state of your unconscious? What are you afraid
of? What do you need? Each card placed in that position provided the answer.
Seventy-eight cards was a lot of Q&A.
11

Especially times five.

Calla and Jimi sighed again, but began to shuffle. Because it
was true: They had a lot of questions. And they needed a lot of
answers.
As one, the women stopped shuffling, closed their eyes, and
held their decks to their hearts, focusing only on each other
and the way that their lives were twined together. The candles
flickered. Long and short and then long shadows played behind
the goddess sculptures. Gwenllian hummed, and after a moment,
Jimi did as well.
Only Artemus sat apart, brows furrowed.
But the women included him when they began to lay out the
cards. First they braided a row of cards into a solid trunk, whispering positions and meanings to each other as they did. Then
they laid out cards in branches that pointed to Artemus, to Jimi,
to Orla. And they laid out cards in roots that pointed to Calla, to
Maura, to Gwenllian. They knocked heads and laid cards over
the top of each other and laughed over their bumbles and gasped
over the order of the cards.
Eventually a story appeared. It was about the people they had
changed, and the people whod changed them. The reading
included all the juicy bits: when Maura had fallen in love with
Artemus; when Jimi had punched Calla; when Orla had secretly
drained the common bank account for a business website that
had yet to make money; when Blue had run away from home and
been dragged home by the cops; when Persephone had died.
The branch that led to Artemus was grim and rotten, littered with swords and fear. The darkness in it led back to the

12

trunk, joining up with something sinister moldering in the root

that belonged to Gwenllian. It was obvious that this darkness
would be what killed them all if they did nothing, though it was
impossible to tell what precisely it was. The womens clairvoyance had never been able to penetrate the area directly over the
ley line, and this darkness was centered there.
The solution to the darkness, however, existed outside of the
ley line. It was multifaceted, uncertain, and difficult. The upshot
was straightforward, though.
Theyre supposed to work together? Calla said with
disbelief.
Thats what it says, Maura said.
Jimi reached for the whiskey bottle, but it was empty. Cant
we just take care of it ourselves?
Were just people, Maura replied. Just ordinary people.
Theyre special. Adams tied to the ley line. Ronans a dreamer.
Blue amplifies all of that.
Richie Rich is just a person, Orla said.
Yes, and hes going to die.
The women contemplated the spread again.
Does this mean shes still alive? Maura asked, tapping on a
card in one of the branchesthe Queen of Swords.
Probably, Calla grunted.
Does this mean shes going to leave? Orla asked, tapping
on another card and referring to a different she.
Probably, Maura sighed.
Does this mean shes coming back? Calla demanded,
pointing to a third card and meaning a third she.

13

Probably, shrieked Gwenllian, leaping up from the table.

She began to spin with her arms in the air.
None of them could sit still any longer. Calla pushed back
her chair. Im getting another drink.
Jimi clucked in agreement. If its the end of the world, I
might as well, too.
As the others left the table, Maura remained, looking at
Artemuss poisoned branch of cards and at Artemus himself,
hunched behind it. Random men from mystical groves were no
longer her type. But still, she remembered loving Artemus, and
this Artemus was greatly diminished.
Artemus? she asked gently.
He didnt lift his head.
She touched his chin with a finger; he flinched. She tilted his
face up so that they were eye to eye. He had never rushed to fill
spaces with words, and he still didnt. He looked as if he might
never speak again, if he could help it.
Since they had both climbed out of the cave, Maura had not
asked him about anything that had happened in the years since
shed seen him last. But now she asked, What happened to you
to make you like this?
He closed his eyes.

14