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The second book in The Raven Cycle series, The Dream Thieves is the 2013 young-adult fantasy romance novel by American author Maggie Stiefvater. Set during the summertime in the fictional town of Henrietta, Virginia, the story follows Ronan Lynch, a Raven Boy who has a secret ability to bring items out of his dreams. When Ronan and his fellow Raven Boys continue their search for King Glendower’s treasure, Ronan’s abilities are exposed and he must go on an adventure to defeat those trying to steal it from him. As he deals with this situation, he must also confront some secrets that have been buried by his family for years as well as protect himself from others who want what he has.
It’s summertime in Henrietta, Virginia. Ronan Lynch tells Adam Parrish and the ghost of Noah Czerny that he has a secret ability to bring items from his dreams into reality. This is a hereditary trait passed down from Ronan’s father, Niall Lynch, who died at the beginning of the book series. The boys attend Aglionby Academy together, where Declan Lynch was attacked by an evil being looking for something called “the Graywaren.” It turns out this object is actually Ronan’s secret ability: dreaming things into existence. Blue Sargent meets with Gansey and Adam at their school after learning she will die if she kisses her true love; they later meet Joseph Kavinsky while eating breakfast and decide to recruit him on their mission to find Owen Glendower (a dead Welsh king).
After a surge of magic, the Gray Man and Ronan’s ghost disappear. Noah’s ghost disappears when he is in the forest behind Aglionby Academy. The Gray Man visits Maura (Blue’s mother) to find out what she knows about finding Glendower. Meanwhile, Ronan wants to go home but his father doesn’t want him there so he goes into Cabeswater Forest where it has disappeared and finds two Night-Horrors that they kill one of them. They bury the dead monster at their childhood house even though Niall told them not to go back there. When they enter their old house, all of the animals are frozen as if they’re lifeless which means that all those things were created by dreams or nightmares. Ronan attacks Adam because Ronan thinks he was involved with his mother’s death since somehow Adam knew about her before anyone else did
Blue comes home to find that The Gray Man is going on a date with Maura. They have dinner, during which he kisses her. Meanwhile, there’s been a robbery at Monmouth Manufacturing and it was done by Kavinsky (even though the real culprit was The Gray Man). Ronan and Gansey confront Kavinsky but he denies involvement. Blue decides to kiss Noah because she doesn’t believe in her kissing rule anymore since he’s already dead. Later, Ronan gets attacked by the Night-Horror that escaped from Aglionby Academy for Boys.
In the second book of the Raven Cycle, Ronan and Kavinsky race in Gansey’s car. During their drive, they talk about how Kavinsky has also seen strange things in his dreams. He explains that he can control what happens in his dreams by taking sleeping pills to help him sleep better at night. After many failed attempts, Ronan finally succeeds in bringing a replica of Gansey’s crashed Camaro out of his dreamscape. However, this causes Cabeswater (the forest) to disappear from reality because there is no longer a ley line beneath Henrietta because it was awakened when Ronan stole an object from Kavinsky’s dreamscape while he slept with sleeping pills on hand. Blue breaks up with Adam after she realizes her heart belongs to Gansey instead. On a drive one day with Gansey, they almost kiss but decide against it so Blue doesn’t die like Maura did earlier on in the series when she fell for someone who wasn’t her predetermined love interest (Gansey). The Gray Man kills Maura after admitting that he had feelings for her and not just disdain as he’d previously claimed throughout most of the series’ first two books. He then goes on to admit that Ronan is actually the real Greywaren and not Adam or any other character we’ve been led to believe over the course of these three novels. The Gray Man decides against taking him away as instructed by whoever hired him prior, which results in his own brother murdering him later on during their meeting together.
