She remembered the light singing underneath.
First she kissed him, slowly and reverently: her miracle, her Romeo, who stole her name and gave it back to her.
Then she took his hands. “Journeys end in lovers meeting,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. “Every wise man’s son doth know.”
Acknowledgments
By the time you’re writing acknowledgments for your fourth book, you start to feel like you’re a repetitious bore—but some people always have to be mentioned. So: Megan Lorance and Sasha Decker are the lights of my life. Hannah Bowman is a fantastic agent, and Kristin Rens is a supremely patient editor.
Bethany Powell and Rebecca Anderson are not only excellent beta readers but A+ friends. I don’t know if I could have finished this novel without them.
I also want to thank everyone who read Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, and especially every person who took the time to tell me that they loved it. Stories are meant to be heard, and your willingness to listen means the world to me.
I’ve wanted to write my own katabasis for a very long time. In constructing my land of the dead, I drew inspiration from a huge variety of sources, but I must particularly acknowledge: Dante’s Divine Comedy, “When I Watch the Living Meet” by A. E. Housman, “The Garden of Proserpine” by Algernon Charles Swinburn, The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, Abhorsen by Garth Nix, Passage by Connie Willis, the ballads “Thomas Rhymer” and “The Unquiet Grave,” and the legend of Savitri and Satyavan.
Finally—as always—I am forever thankful to William Shakespeare.