Your whole life ahead of you.
She wished this idea would simply go away. To let go of the unrecoverable past and attempt to grasp a future . . . that would take courage, far more than she possessed. The past was too much a part of her.
You’ve got guts, Queenie, Arliss whispered in her head.
That was true; she had always had guts. But what she needed now was a concussion. How could she forget everything and start again, here, in this normal life?
She turned up the library walk, miserably aware that she was crying again. She dug in her bag, but she hadn’t even been smart enough to remember a handkerchief.
There was worse to come: Carlin was on the library porch, sitting in one of the chairs. She liked to eat her lunch outside when the weather was cool, and so the rest of the staff generally avoided the porch on principle. Kelsea tried to walk past as quickly as possible.
“Kelsea?”
Murmuring a curse inside her head, Kelsea turned back.
“What’s happened to you?” Carlin asked.
“Nothing,” Kelsea replied, ducking her head, and in that moment she realized that it could almost be true. Nothing had happened, nothing real outside her head . . . but could she ever accept that? She wiped her streaming eyes, then jumped as she felt Carlin’s hand on her shoulder.
Of all of the odd moments Kelsea had experienced in the past weeks, this was perhaps the most unsettling. There was no tenderness in Carlin, never had been; she never touched anyone, except to discipline. But now, the hand on Kelsea’s shoulder did not pinch, and when she looked up, she found that Carlin’s stern, lined face was kind. Astonished, Kelsea suddenly realized that in this new Tearling, anything could be different. Even Carlin Glynn could change, become someone else.
“Kelsea?”
Swallowing her tears, Kelsea took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. She was not a queen but a normal girl, a good citizen of the Tearling . . . her kingdom, which no longer needed saving, which had been made whole.
“Kelsea, where have you been?”
Acknowledgments
Anyone who doubts the need for editors in publishing has never had a good editor. This book was by far the most difficult and demanding writing I’ve ever done, and at several points I would have been quite happy to destroy it and never write anything again. My good friend and editor Maya Ziv hung with me through the long, messy process of turning an ugly first draft into a book I can be proud of, and any failings that remain in the final draft are those of my own imagination. Maya only made me cut a few of the dirty words too!
I am doubly fortunate to have not only a great editor but a great agent. Thank you, Dorian Karchmar, for always believing the Tearling was worth a lot of work, and no small amount of trouble on the side. There’s more than one Mace here; I appreciate the fact that you kept me safe, both personally and professionally, while I wrote these books. Everyone else at William Morris Endeavor has been unbelievably good to me as well; thank you to Jamie Carr, Laura Bonner, Simone Blaser, Ashley Fox, Michelle Feehan, and Cathryn Summerhayes.
Thank you to everyone at HarperCollins, but particularly Jonathan Burnham, for giving me the extra time I needed to finish this book right. Thank you also to Emily Griffin, continuity wizard Miranda Ottewell, Heather Drucker, Amanda Ainsworth, Katie O’Callaghan, Virginia Stanley, and Erin Wicks, for all of your help over the years, as well as plenty of tolerance for my, ahem, troublesome idiosyncrasies.
Thank you to the many kind people at Transworld Publishers, particularly Simon Taylor, Sophie Christopher, and Leanne Oliver. Good people all, very nice to the uncouth American in their midst.
Both family and friends have been supremely understanding about the Mr. Hyde I reveal under deadline. Thank you to my husband, Shane, for helping me keep my sanity—and not losing your own!—while I was under tremendous pressure. Thank you, Dad, for never telling me to settle down and quit studying the humanities. And most of all, thank you, Christian and Katie, for being you.
As always, I am deeply grateful to all libraries and independent bookstores out there for their great love and support for these books, but I would like to give a particular shout-out to Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, and to fantastic employees Amber Reed and Ray Lawrason, who steer me toward good books.