The words were so loaded, it would have taken hours to unpack everything in them. All I could do was nod, for now.
“You realize…” Nev paused. “You realize my family might still try to come after you, or me. If they do, Basra could try to sink Dracorte Industries again, of course, but any attempts on our lives might not be directly linked to them. There are plenty of assassins and bounty hunters who do work for the Dracortes, never mind those who could be sent by other families.”
For some insane reason, I still wasn’t worried. I couldn’t get over the simple fact that we were all alive. Beyond that, everything was unimportant. “I won’t let them hurt any of us. There’s so much Shadow on Alaxak that I can use if—”
I tried not to start when Nev rested his forehead against mine. His breath was warm on my face. “I have no doubt…but at what cost to you?”
“I…” I hesitated, and then said truthfully, “I don’t know. I don’t know if, or when, all this will catch up to me.”
His hand tightened in mine, tugging me closer, his forehead nudging mine. “I’m not just going to leave you to this. I promised. I promised to help you figure out your Shadow affinity, how to use it safely. I haven’t forgotten.” He chuckled, once. “And now that we’re not all about to die, it has moved to the top of my priority list, just short of breathing.”
Now I couldn’t breathe again. But if I’d thought that was bad, he then kissed my forehead. It was like he’d dropped a bomb on my skin. A tingle spread in a radius out from his lips, racing over my scalp and down my spine. I couldn’t believe he could just do something like that, and the ship didn’t grind to a halt, or the planets stop spinning, or the stars burn out.
His arms came around my shoulders like nothing had happened. I couldn’t help leaning into him, resting my cheek against his chest.
“I know,” he began, “that everything just changed for the both of us. A lot. Everything is different. But perhaps…perhaps we can figure it out together. I’m ready to face these changes.”
My own arms snaked around his back. Next to him, almost anything seemed possible. Even the impossible.
It was time to find that balance, that peace, I’d been looking for all my life. My lips parted, and I breathed into his shirt.
“Me too,” I whispered.
This book went through a unique process in its birth, and as with anything, there are a number of people and entities that made its very existence possible.
First—and this always gets stuck at the end—thanks to our respective life partners for initially thinking this was a terrible idea and then being ridiculously supportive. We essentially stopped being humans while writing, and somehow they didn’t lose their tempers while cohabiting with sleepless grouch golems. Not only that, they both eagerly devoured and then critiqued the manuscript. Margaret Adsit, thank you for your unflinching recommendations on chapters, and, Lukas Strickland, thank you for calling it like you see it. We love you both.
Second, a big thank you to Alex Miller, Michael’s brother, for being there for the initial brainstorming on the snow-swept drive to the airport that kick-started this entire adventure. As for Deanna Birdsall, AdriAnne’s mom—if there’s a missed apostrophe in the entire thing, it’s because we put it in after her incredible proofreading. Dan and Pam Strickland, AdriAnne’s parents-in-law, somehow found time to be early readers and to lend us kind words. Chelsea Pitcher, awesome author and friend, gave us a thorough critique and was an early cheerleader. And to our friend and Michael’s coworker, Logan Bean, who patiently wondered why Michael was sleep deprived and then happily volunteered as a test audience when he found out, thank you. Thanks so much to all of you.
It goes without saying (but we will anyway): many thanks to our agent, Kirsten Carleton, who has proven a combination of contract warrior, story connoisseur, and all-around cool. And then there’s Kate Sullivan, our amazing editor at Delacorte Press, who was (and will continue to be) a virtual shepherd to our book, and left truly hilarious comments in the margins while she was at it.
We also want to thank the real, live fisherwomen and lady captains (all of them pilots too) who were such an inspiration when uniting Qole: Anna Hoover, Thorey Munro, and Amanda Zharoff, you are badasses of epic proportion. Thanks especially to Anna for vetting parts of the manuscript and providing feedback.
Last but not least, Michael would like to thank God, and AdriAnne would like to thank the god of beer.
This book was written in Alaska, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and Washington. It was written on windswept beaches and sunny beaches, in snowy forests and forests of people. It has traveled thousands of real and digital miles and has fueled untold sleepless nights and our wildest imaginations. So to each and every one of you who helped make this possible, we are more thankful than these puny words can say.
Michael Miller and AdriAnne Strickland met in their hometown of Palmer, Alaska, where they agreed on books 99 percent of the time, and thus decided to write together. They grew up on Lord of the Rings, Russian folktales, the Ender Quartet, the Little House on the Prairie books, and The X-Files. Michael grew up off the grid in a homestead in Alaska and ironically now works very much on the grid in IT and Web development. AdriAnne grew up in Nevada and now spends her summers as a commercial fisherwoman in Bristol Bay, Alaska, and the rest of her year writing. This is their first book.