I’m writing this afterword from my new office in North Carolina, sipping a Diet Coke on an eighty-degree afternoon. One week ago, I was looking out the window at Chicago snow. There’s nothing like a cross-country move to shake your world apart, but now that it’s finally over and I’m settling in, I’m glad I did it. That’s the other thing about change; it’s stressful and it’s crazy-inducing and it can feel like hell, but more often than not, there’s something good waiting for you on the other side.
It took a while for Daniel to break out of his inertia, and now he’s found the world never stops moving. Birthdays keep coming (with midlife hovering on his doorstep), challenges keep looming, and the city keeps changing. He has to change along with it. I think that’s a feeling we can all relate to, in a wild and uncertain world, though hopefully most of us aren’t getting shot at quite as often as Daniel is. If there’s a takeaway, I’d say it’s this: if he can survive the combined fury of the Enemy and the Network and teach magic to a teenager, we can survive anything. And change is a lot easier when you face it with friends.
Speaking of friends (see what I did there? Segue.), let me give a big shout-out to Team Schaefer: Kira Rubenthaler, my editor (sorry about the roach-pit scene, Kira); James T. Egan, my cover designer; my awesome assistant Maggie Faid; and also-awesome audiobook narrator Adam Verner. I couldn’t do what I do without ’em. And now it’s time for me to bravely venture into the living room, and unpack some more boxes.
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